Sharpe's Hazard
by Lesley Ward
Summary: A little adventure for every woman's favourite Rifleman. A bit of derring do, a wench of the week and a dangerous mission.
1. Default Chapter

The characters of Richard Sharpe, Sergeant Harper et al. belong, of course, to their creator, Bernard Cornwell, but hopefully he won't mind that I've borrowed his Rifleman and sent him off on dangerous mission.

SHARPE'S HAZARD

Richard Sharpe and the capture of Benavento 

Chapter 1

"If you've come to find out when that poor man will be fit to face French guns again, I can tell you that it'll be when I say he's fit and not before."

Major Richard Sharpe whipped round, startled. He had entered the makeshift sick room soundlessly, intending to make his way to where Robbins, the most recent recruit to the Rifles was lying white-faced and sweating on a blanket in the corner, until the peremptory female voice stopped him in his tracks.

He had been vaguely aware of the woman as he surveyed the inhabitants of the dimly lit room - the usual desperate assortment of wounded and dying, sprawled across flea-infested palliasses, tended more in hope than expectation by harassed army surgeons - and had taken her for the wife of one of the men, come to see if a new means of support would be required shortly for herself and the customary offspring.

But now the woman was standing in front of him, her narrowed blue eyes almost level with his own; the combination of hands on hips and cocked head giving her the air of an irate bantam.

Sharpe took an involuntary step back. "I was told I should speak to Doctor Burnett."

Even in his weakened state, Robbins managed a warning glance. The woman intercepted the look and turned to Sharpe with what might charitably have been termed a smile.

"That would be me," she said, raising a hand to stall any protest, had Sharpe been unwise enough to make one. "And yes, I do realise I'm not a man. Nor am I a 'proper' doctor. I am, however, the person you should speak to regarding the progress of your Mr. Robbins."

Robbins lifted a sympathetic eyebrow and shrugged. Both actions appeared to consume the last of his strength and he subsided onto the thin straw mattress with a groan.

Helen Burnett eyed Sharpe with suspicion, waiting to see which of the two stock reactions the tall Rifleman would favour.

Would it be the contemptuous sniff with neck craning over her shoulder in an attempt to locate her father for a man-to-man discussion? Or might he perhaps opt for the supercilious enquiry into her gender's suitability for exposure to copious amounts of blood and gore?

"My apologies, ma'am. I came to see how Robbins was getting along. It was some time before he could be removed from the field, and I understand he lost a good deal of blood."

The Doctor blinked in surprise. This mysterious Major had demonstrated an unexpected third way; civility, plain and simple. She twitched the scrap of blanket to cover Robbins feet, mentally allowing the tall, dark-haired Rifleman to rise in her estimation, at least for the time being.

"He is recovering, as you see. You may question him yourself, but don't be all day about it. This is an infirmary, not a tavern. If you should wish to toast your man's good fortune, I believe the scouts have discovered several barrels of brandy in the cellar."

Sharpe hunkered down beside Robbins, watching Doctor Burnett's retreating back, before turning his attention to the blood-soaked bandages that bound Robbins' left leg. "You'll be back on your feet in a day or two, then?"

"We've all to make a fast recovery, or we'll never hear the end of it." Robbins offered a weak smile.

Sharpe squeezed his shoulder encouragingly. "Good man."

Sergeant Patrick Harper was taking advantage of the afternoon sun, and the sturdy fortifications of the Castillo de Benavento by snoozing atop the fortress's outer defences, while Major Michael Hogan, Lord Wellington's Chief Engineer, leant against the stonework, rummaging in his coat pocket for an elusive tin of snuff.

Sharpe crossed the rough patch of grass between the castle keep and the curtain wall to join them.

"How is the young fella, then?" Harper enquired, opening one eye.

Sharpe shrugged. "Doctor Burnett says we can have him back the day after tomorrow..."

"...And not before!" Hogan finished for him.

"Oh. You've met her then?"

"No," Hogan gave a satisfied grunt as the snuffbox finally gave up its hiding place, "but the lady's reputation travels ahead of her."

"A regular martinet, so she is," Harper chimed in, struggling to sit up.

"A holy terror to the man who's sound in wind and limb, but when she's dug an ounce of lead out of your belly, I'm told she's the epitome of kindness," Hogan continued.

"You couldn't be in better hands if the Madonna herself was taking care of you." Harper smiled beatifically.

Sharpe eyed both men doubtfully, having some difficulty in associating the excavation of a bullet from a man's abdominal cavity with tenderness on the part of Doctor Burnett.

"As far as I'm concerned, Doctor Burnett is just another good reason for dodging a French bullet, apart from the usual one of wanting to stay alive," he responded sourly.

Harper flicked Sharpe a knowing glance. The Major had that look in his eye again; the belligerent outburst merely covering fire.

"I take it there is a proper doctor somewhere around?" Sharpe asked, looking toward Hogan.

"Now, now, Richard, don't be so disparaging of young Helen's efforts. Her father's taught her everything he knows." Hogan paused to give vent to a prodigious snuff-induced sneeze. "Doctor Baxter, George. You'd have seen him at the main gate earlier on. Little fellow."

Sharpe recalled an older man, moving among the wounded from the previous morning's skirmish, dispatching them either to the infirmary, the castle's great hall, or to 'God's waiting room', the undercroft, depending on the severity and likely outcome of their injuries. He nodded before asking casually, "Is there a Mr. Burnett?"

Harper affected an expression of supreme indifference to his commanding officer's gruff enquiry, and looked off toward the distant hills.

Hogan pondered the question while mopping at his nose and streaming eyes with a large blue handkerchief that bore the indelible marks of blasting powder. "Nobody knows, Richard. Nobody knows."

Having cleared his sinuses for the coming week, Hogan detached himself from the wall to peer up at the castle keep. "Now here's a puzzle for you, my lads. Why would the wily French leave a perfectly good castle like this one unattended, eh?"

"Perhaps Doctor Burnett ordered them to leave," Sharpe offered.

Ignoring the suggestion, Hogan paced the grass, warming to his theme. "After all, it commands a fine view of the river in both directions. It's built on the highest point for miles around. There's no chance of anyone sneaking up on us without our knowing, is there? And you couldn't find a better example of Moorish architecture if you'd chosen it from a pattern book. It's a mystery, that's what it is." After one further sneeze, the Engineer sauntered off to study the fortifications at closer quarters.

Harper eyed Sharpe slyly. "It'd take a brave man to make a play for that lady doctor."

Sharpe glared at him. "Well, don't look at me! I'm not looking to get my head bitten off again. I can get that from Wellington."

"Now you can tell me I'm wrong, sir," Harper began. He paused to allow Sharpe a derisive snort, before ploughing on doggedly. "Because I know you're as like as the next man to be smitten by some dainty piece wringing her hands by the roadside, but when all's said and done, you're the sort who enjoys a challenge, so you are." The Sergeant shrugged. "Personally, I like my women to have a little more meat on their bones, but there's no accounting for taste."

"Shut up, Harper!" Sharpe snapped. He straightened, tugging irritably at his jacket and stalked off after Major Hogan.

"You don't fancy yourself as Saint George this time, then?" Harper called after him.

Sharpe stopped, and then swung around to regard the grinning Irishman with a stony expression. "Doctor Burnett is not a damsel in distress." He turned away, adding under his breath "More like the bloody dragon."

Hogan, now taxing the load-bearing capabilities of a different section of the Castillo's ramparts, watched as Sharpe leant into the firestep to train his telescope on the surrounding forest, the winding river and finally the flattened grass on the hillside, bleached and burned after weeks of blazing sunshine.

"It's not a mystery at all," Sharpe declared finally, putting away the telescope and turning to Hogan.

"Ah, you've seen through my little attempt at deception, Richard. I just wanted to see whether you were paying attention back there. Go on, then. What's wrong with this place?"

Sharpe jerked a thumb toward the dense forest that crowded the riverbank. "It's all these bloody trees. They're blocking our view of the village and most of the river approach. If the French were to overrun the garrison, they'd be up this path and hammering at the gate before we knew it."

"And there you have it, Richard. No flies on you, eh?" Shading his eyes against the sun, Hogan leaned back to study the castle keep, which rose majestically behind them. "Will you look at the workmanship here? Eight hundred years old if it's a day, but you'd think it had been built last week."

Hogan dropped his hand and turned to survey the land below. "Of course, if it had been built last week, that damn great forest wouldn't be there. Your Moorish commanding officer would have insisted on an uninterrupted view from here to the Bay of Biscay."

"So why didn't Colonel Blake insist on it?" Sharpe asked dutifully.

While it was likely that Hogan's opinion of the Colonel's tactical capabilities mirrored his own, Sharpe knew that it was best to allow the Engineer to expound his theories.

"Because he's been sleeping on feather beds for too long, Richard, and it's addled his brain. Think yourself lucky you've been bedding down on straw all these years."

Sharpe regarded Hogan with a jaundiced eye. Straw had been an infrequent luxury throughout this campaign. More often than not, it had been the bare, hard ground for himself and his men.

Ignorant of the look, Hogan continued. "And also because he has men like you and me to do his thinking for him. Which is why I've suggested that a patrol should run down to the village, just to see what's what. Eight men. Two officers. That should do it, eh, Richard?"

Sharpe nodded, acknowledging the unspoken order.

"Brief, but bloody." That had been Colonel Blake's assessment of the previous day's encounter, although Sharpe could take issue with him over the former adjective. Likely the skirmish had seemed so to an officer on horseback, observing the action from a safe distance. To an infantryman, hacking and slashing his way through the heaving mass of bodies, blinded by smoke and deafened by musketry, it had been an unending hell on earth.

Blake had been right about it being bloody though, Sharpe thought. Massena's troops had fought like demons. Their Emperor's displeasure at being thwarted at Torre Vedras had no doubt filtered down through the ranks until it reached the infantry, where, having nowhere else to go, it had vented itself on Rifleman and Redcoat alike.

Determined to resist being driven back across the Spanish border into their homeland, the battered French troops had nevertheless engaged the triumphant English forces at every opportunity, struggling to secure every bridge, every town, every fortification.

Except for this one. Il Castillo de Benavento.

Colonel Blake had dispatched a scouting party to discover if the rumours of the French having abandoned the castle were true. Word had come back; it was so. At this, Blake had ridden, and the shattered remains of his troops had climbed wearily to the top of the hill. Blake, as Hogan had surmised, to seek out a feather bed for himself and the lissom twin sisters, recently acquired in Lisbon; the men to whatever comfort they could find among the assortment of storerooms in the vast courtyard.

Sharpe observed the fortress now, its daunting sandstone walls glowing pale gold in the early morning sun. He lowered his gaze and saw an unfamiliar figure approaching. He got to his feet as the man drew nearer and the knot of men behind him, which included Harper and Harris, did likewise.

The beige facings on the newcomer's jacket marked him as belonging to the Kent regiment, two dozen of whose members now occupied the floor of the great hall, awaiting the attention of the overworked surgeons.

"Major Hewlin. Third Regiment of Foot. I'm at your disposal, Major Sharpe."

Sharpe returned the slight bow offered by Hewlin. "I must thank you for your assistance yesterday, Major. Your men helped us out of a tight spot."

"All part of the service," Hewlin replied with a smile.

"Ah, you can always rely on the solid support of the Buffs, so you can."

Hewlin acknowledged Harper's compliment with another bow.

He possessed, Sharpe noticed, the easy, confident manner of the moneyed, although he had to admit that this self-assurance had served the Major well during the battle on the banks of the Esla when it seemed as if they might be overwhelmed by the ferocity of the French attack. Hewlin had fearlessly led by example and in doing so earned Sharpe's grudging respect.

"Hugh Lynn. You're Welsh, then? You don't sound Welsh," Sharpe said, regarding Hewlin with a frown.

Hewlin laughed indulgently, as if well used to this kind of misunderstanding. "Oh, no. Hewlin's my last name. First name's John."

Hewlin turned to gesture toward the castle's main gate, the massive double doors of some dark wood, studded with a complicated pattern of iron rivets. "With your permission, Major, best we make a start. I'm told it's going to be another hot one."

Sharpe nodded his assent and the patrol moved off.

Sharpe stood on a ridge, surveying the landscape, a not entirely necessary exercise, but one that allowed him and the rest of the men to stop and catch their breath. The rolling countryside, viewed from the castle, suggested an easy descent into the village, but the stony ground and tangle of vegetation had had them stumbling over jagged outcrops of rock and slipping on the parched grass.

One of the younger men was continuing to forge ahead determinedly. Sharpe observed his progress, recognising him as Simpson. He sighed. The boy really should learn to take a rest when it was offered. Other officers were known to drive their men into the ground without a second thought. Simpson suddenly yelped and sprawled headlong. Harper trotted after him, followed by Major Hewlin.

"Sure-footed as a mountain goat, eh, Simpson?" Harper shook his head, grinning as he hauled the boy to his feet. "Rabbit hole," he declared, looking toward Sharpe.

"Anything broken?" Sharpe enquired as he made his way across the uneven ground to join them. He halted and eyed the hapless Simpson with scant sympathy. Simpson balanced precariously on one leg, flexing the ankle and flushing with embarrassment. Hewlin bent to inspect the damage. "No, he'll live."

"All right, let's get a move on." Sharpe beckoned impatiently to the men.

"Just a minute! I think you dropped something, Major."

Sharpe automatically checked over his kit, but found nothing amiss. He turned around, puzzled, and then realised that Lieutenant Jackson, recently promoted and transferred to the Company, was addressing Hewlin.

Jackson darted forward and pounced on a small shiny object, half-hidden in the long grass. Sharpe watched as Jackson retrieved it, expecting him to return it to Hewlin immediately. But oddly, Jackson hesitated, turning the piece over in his palm, his eyes flickering across its gleaming surface.

Sharpe glanced toward Harper questioningly, but Jackson's hesitation was brief and had obviously passed unremarked by the others. When he returned his attention to Hewlin, the Major was thanking Jackson profusely and about to pocket the object, a tiny snuffbox.

"Pretty thing, that," Harper noted, appreciatively. "Family heirloom, is it?"

Hewlin looked down at the box in surprise, as if noticing the finely enamelled lid for the first time. "What? Oh, no. Spoils of war. You come across a nice little piece like this every now and then, don't you?"

Sharpe smiled at the sight of Harper's raised eyebrow. He and his Sergeant had tended to concentrate on replacing their wardrobe from among the French dead, rather than seeking out expensive knick-knacks. Sharpe looked down at his hardwearing cavalry trousers. They had seen better days certainly, but they were a good fit, despite having been made for another man. A member of Napoleon's Imperial Guard, no less, summarily despatched by Sergeant Harper at Santiago de Compostela.

Sharpe fell into step beside Hewlin as they continued their descent.

"So, where're you from?"

"Um... Truro, originally," Hewlin replied.

Harris, walking a short distance in front, overheard, and called over his shoulder. "I don't suppose you ran across... oh... what was his name? He was with the 32nd at Salamanca..." He looked around, seeking out fellow Rifleman, Dobbs.

"Pencarrow," Dobbs supplied obligingly. "Major Pencarrow."

"Yes, that's the man. Pencarrow. You didn't get the chance to chew the fat with a fellow Cornishman?"

Hewlin hesitated. "No, the name isn't familiar. But I think I'd have been a disappointment to him. My family moved away when I was quite young. I can barely remember the place."

"Where did you go?" Sharpe asked.

Hewlin frowned and looked away before answering. "Further... south."

Harper eyed Hewlin, surprised. "Shouldn't think you could go much further south in Cornwall without getting your feet wet."

"I meant further in the South... of England. My mother, God rest her, must have had gypsy blood. She moved us around quite a bit. As long as she was within sight of the sea, she was happy. We finally settled in Dover, hence the... er..." Hewlin trailed off, indicating the buff facings on his jacket.

Sharpe had allowed the conversation to continue without him, concentrating instead on the possibility of ambush as they neared the dense forest that covered the steep slope leading down to the river. He signalled to the men to proceed with caution.

Sharpe could feel rivulets of sweat trickling between his shoulder blades and cooling on his skin. A sixth sense told him that the chill he was experiencing could not be attributed solely to the lower temperature down here among the trees.

He glanced toward Harper who struggled gamely over the gnarled roots that lay in wait for the unwary, twisting across their path like so many ancient fingers grappling for purchase in the dusty earth. Sunlight bounced and sparkled on the river, visible in slivers through the trunks of pine trees, and he could hear the sound of water as it rushed gurgling over stones in the shallows.

Two days ago, these same quiet banks had been overrun with British and French infantry. Intelligence reports had suggested that Napoleon's troops were far away on the other side of the Esla, that they had no interest in the village or its castle, but as the men of the South Essex neared the bridge, the French had swarmed down the hillside on the opposite bank, intent on wiping out this division of Wellington's army.

Sharpe recalled the fight now as a confused barrage of images: dense gunsmoke hanging in the air, the hoarse shouts of the advancing troops, a French cavalry officer, wheeling his mount in the river. He remembered being grabbed by Harper and shoved face down in the water so that the sword intended to slice through his neck, whistled harmlessly past his ear. He had staggered to his feet, his uniform heavy and clinging, and reached up to drag the officer from his saddle, ripping and slashing with his sword until the river foamed with blood.

On this bright morning there were few reminders of the ferocious battle. The wooden bridge had borne the brunt of the attack; its splintered remains carried a hundred yards downstream. The dead and wounded from both sides had been recovered. Sharpe noticed a broken bayonet, wedged between two boulders on the riverbank, a pool of congealed blood on the ground beneath it.

Harper appeared beside him and touched his shoulder, gesturing toward the shadows in the pine forest. "I think we have company, sir."

Sharpe signalled to the men, who immediately paired off and fanned out to move stealthily through the trees. He noted that Hewlin had crossed to join Simpson, while Jackson was providing cover for Harris.

Sharpe was about to follow Harper, but something about Jackson's behaviour made him hesitate. Incredibly the man appeared to be stalking Hewlin. Sharpe blinked and looked away, rubbing his forehead. The humidity had left him light-headed. He must have imagined it.

Still puzzling, he followed Jackson's progress as they moved over the rough ground, but saw nothing further in the other man's movements that he could term strange. Jackson's attention seemed concentrated wholly on the danger ahead, sensed, but as yet unseen.

Sharpe ducked as a bullet whipped past his ear. Harris already had his rifle to his shoulder, tracking a flutter of blue cloth as the sniper scrambled away through the bushes. More shots rang out. The patrol returned fire.

Harper kept pace with Sharpe as they raced for the cover of a rocky outcrop. Slamming into it, keeping low, Sharpe asked "How many, Pat?" Harper shrugged. "Two, maybe three."

Sharpe risked a glance over the top of the rock. "What d'you reckon? Deserters?" Spotting movement among the trees, Harper brought up his rifle and fired. He nodded in satisfaction as his shot was rewarded with a yell and the sight of a French soldier crashing through the undergrowth. The man tumbled down the slope and came to rest in a shallow ditch.

Sharpe and Harper approached with caution, the Irishman leaning in to check for any sign of life. "I think this one was still taking whatever passes for the King's shilling in Boney's army." Harper nudged the soldier's uniform jacket with the toe of his boot, indicating the rows of gleaming brass buttons. "Spit and polish is the first thing to go when a man's out for himself."

Both men ducked as more gunfire was exchanged above their heads. Sharpe looked around to see Hewlin caught by a bullet, the force of the shot jerking him backward into a tree. The Major glanced at his right hand, now bright with blood and struggled to reload his rifle with his left. But Sharpe noticed that Hewlin was looking not in the direction of the enemy attack, but behind him, where Jackson and Harris had taken cover.

Simpson brought down a second sniper as the patrol closed in on the remaining attackers. When a third French soldier was lying dead in the undergrowth, Sharpe and the men regrouped.

Sharpe scanned the clearing. "Where's Jackson?"

"He was right behind me," Harris replied, looking around.

Harper nodded to where a figure lay crumpled at the base of a pine tree. Jackson was doubled over, hands pressed tight against his stomach. Sharpe knelt beside him, swiftly assessing the damage, then stood and walked away a few paces to consult with Harper.

The Irishman could tell from Sharpe's backward glance toward the castle that he was calculating the time and distance between Jackson and medical assistance.

"He won't make it, sir."

"We don't know that." Sharpe looked over at Jackson.

Major Hewlin was beside him now, leaning in, clasping the wounded man's shoulder, doubtless offering the usual platitudes, his own injury forgotten.

"Yes, we do."

"So, what now?"

Harper regarded Sharpe levelly. "We get him back, sir."


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter 2

"I don't believe you've been introduced to my nieces, have you, Major Sharpe?"

Sharpe looked between the beribboned and bejewelled twins who were seated on either side of Colonel Blake, and owned that he had not had that pleasure.

"This is Estella, and this is Josefina." Blake gestured to left and right, then checked, frowning in mock consternation. "Or is it the other way about? D'you know, I still can't tell them apart." He grinned and winked at Sharpe. "Not that it matters much."

Understanding little if any of the Colonel's remarks, the girls smiled in response to Sharpe's greeting, and fanned themselves prettily with impressive constructions of lace and ostrich plumes, while Blake deposited what he fondly imagined to be an avuncular kiss on their dutifully proffered cheeks.

Word had it that Colonel Blake was an avid collector of new faces, but that those deemed insufficiently entertaining were soon excluded from his 'inner circle'. Dining with Colonel Blake was definitely not at the top of Sharpe's list of favourite occupations, but he had hopes that a single, taciturn appearance at table would be enough to stave off further invitations.

"Truly a rose between two thorns," Captain Whiting, Blake's languid aide-de-camp observed _sotto voce_, as he passed behind Sharpe's chair to reach his own.

Whiting settled himself with much rearranging and smoothing of his perfectly pressed uniform, and then leant across to drag a bottle of wine within reach. He poured himself a generous measure and eyed Blake mischievously. "Nieces, eh, Colonel? I didn't know you had family connections in Lisbon."

Blake opened his mouth, desperately trying to remember the details of the story previously concocted. He and the girls had made a start on a cask of brandy earlier in the day, and while Estella and Josefina appeared to have an infinite capacity for strong drink, he was somewhat disturbed to find that matching them glass for glass had severely impaired his faculties.

"Ah, yes, yes indeed. An ancestor of mine once provided a very valuable service to Henry the Navigator." Blake sat back in his chair, astonished by his own power of invention.

"Looks like old Henry's returned the favour," Sharpe muttered to Hogan, seated beside him.

"Three hundred and fifty years after the event, but better late than never, I always say, "Hogan replied with a raised eyebrow.

Whiting slopped more wine into his glass, and then leant across Hogan to address Sharpe. "I say, old boy, give her one for me, will you?"

Sharpe stared at him. "I beg your pardon?"

Whiting nodded toward Blake's winsome companions. "The lovely Estella. Give her knee a little squeeze for me. Lord knows, if the poor girl must be pinched black and blue, let it at least be by someone who still has a pulse. I mean, what's the Colonel got going for him, apart from being a living tribute to the embalmer's art?"

Sharpe's guess was that the lady in question closed her eyes and thought, if not of Portugal, then of the Colonel's bank balance and family connections; the one undoubtedly over-inflated, the other shamelessly embroidered.

Doctor Baxter, whose modest presence among them had gone largely unnoticed, interrupted Whiting's lament with a fit of coughing. Colonel Blake peered across the table blearily. "That you makin' that racket, Baxter? Collision of wind and water, eh? Cough it up, old boy, might be a gold watch."

Baxter took a tentative sip of wine and replaced the glass on the table with rather more force than he had intended. Blake's attention was immediately on the wineglass. Light dawned.

"Ah, the wine, of course. Filthy stuff, isn't it? Can't think how any of us can bear to drink it." Blake sought to confirm his opinion by downing the contents of his own glass in one prodigious swallow. Grimacing, he drew a hand across his mouth. Wine dripped from his glass onto the tablecloth. "Trust the bloody French not to bring any decent grog with them. I'll wager Boney's keeping all the good stuff to himself. The beggar thinks he's going to have something to celebrate. Not if you have anything to do with it, eh, Major Sharpe?"

"What? Er… no, sir." Sharpe had been allowing Blake's ramblings to wash over him, but now he sat to attention. Blake fixed him with a bloodshot eye. "I hear the French gave you a bit of a fright the other day, what?"

Sharpe cleared his throat. "Our patrol came under attack from snipers before we able to reach the village, sir. Two of the men were wounded."

"Well, we can't have that, can we? Get the matter cleared up, Sharpe. My girls were looking forward to going out riding. They can't do that if some Frog sniper's going to take a pot shot at them, now can they?"

"No, sir." Sharpe stole a glance at Hogan, who obligingly took up the reins.

"I would suggest, Colonel, that we liase with the partisans in the area. They're familiar with the terrain and could help us find a safer way to stay in contact with the garrison. In the meantime, I think it best that the young ladies confine their… er… activities to the castle grounds."

"They both have excellent seats." Blake beamed fondly. "That was the first thing I noticed about them."

Surprised by Blake's strange observation, Sharpe looked over to find the Colonel crushing Estella and Josefina to him. Blake saw the look and slackened his hold, vaguely recalling having told the assembled company that his first sight of the girls had been of them in their christening gowns.

Abruptly, Blake turned his attention to the empty chair beside Doctor Baxter. "Your delightful daughter keeps her state, I see, George," he boomed, "but in best time we will require her welcome."

Baxter's head bobbed nervously in response. He reached for his wineglass, and then remembering his reason for leaving well alone, drew the hand back. "Ah, yes, um… Helen sends her apologies, Colonel, but the wounded in the infirmary command her attention."

"Command her attention!" Blake snorted in disbelief. "It does no good to indulge the men, you know. The only thing to do is patch up the ones who can be patched up, and bury the ones who can't. The idle beggars won't think any more of her for having sat up all night with them, mopping their fevered brow. Ain't that right, Major Sharpe?"

"On the contrary, Colonel Blake. I understand that the men are extremely grateful for her care, as am I," Sharpe replied.

He was also extremely grateful that Sergeant Harper wasn't here to witness his leaping to the doctor's defence. Hurriedly, Sharpe got to his feet and looked around the table. "If you'll excuse me, Colonel, I must call in to the infirmary myself. One of my men was wounded in the attack the other day. I'd like to check on his condition."

Blake waved his wineglass expansively. "By all means, Major. Run along."

Sharpe looked toward the ladies. "Goodnight, Miss Estella, Miss Josefina."

As he closed the door behind him, Sharpe caught sight of Captain Whiting sliding into the now vacant seat beside Estella and snaking a hand under the table in one swift movement.

Estella gave a squeak and vanished behind her fan.

Sharpe entered the infirmary and made his way toward the far wall to find that the space recently occupied by Jackson was now empty.

Doctor Burnett, folding blankets in a side room, observed Sharpe's arrival, and seeing his confusion at finding Jackson gone, went to meet him.

"Major Sharpe."

Sharpe turned. "Doctor Burnett."

In general, Helen Burnett affected not to remember the names of officers, believing them to receive sufficient, not to say unwarranted respect from their men without her bolstering their egos. But since their first encounter, and much to her annoyance, she had found herself soliciting opinion of this particular Rifleman. Major Richard Sharpe, it would seem, was 'a good enough officer, all things considered', or 'a proper bastard', depending on the speaker's rank and disposition.

Sharpe looked down at the patch of bare stone floor. Doctor Burnett followed his gaze. "I'm sorry, Major. Wounds to the stomach are almost always fatal. Infection spreads quickly and is almost impossible to control. But I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that."

"I didn't think he stood much of a chance to be honest, Doctor."

"But you brought him back, just the same."

Sharpe shrugged. What else could he have done? The woman's tone implied criticism, but he noticed that her expression softened for a moment.

"That bullet you dug out of Jackson," Sharpe began hesitantly, "I suppose it was French?"

The Doctor checked slightly. "While it's true I did remove a bullet from my patient's lower intestinal tract, I regret I did not seek to discover its nationality." Pointedly avoiding Sharpe's eye and continuing to fuss with the blanket, she glanced at him under her lashes, trying to gauge the effect of her icy response. The Rifleman's gaze remained fixed on the flagstones. Doctor Burnett eyed him narrowly. "You have reason to suppose that it wasn't?"

Sharpe looked at her for a moment, debating how to answer the question. His suspicions would be better kept to himself, for the time being. "Er… no. It was just a thought. We often use French ammunition when we find it on the bodies after a battle. Out English bullets are larger though, so Napoleon's men can't play the same game."

Doctor Burnett turned away to survey her remaining patients, seeming affronted by Sharpe's pragmatism. The sickly sweet smell of decay hung in the air, overlaying that of unwashed bodies and damp wool.  A fire burned fiercely in the hall's imposing hearth, fanned by intermittent icy draughts.

"Why do men do this to each other?" the Doctor said. She paused and then turned to face Sharpe. "Why do _you_ do it, Major Sharpe?"

Sharpe found himself pinioned by her pale-eyed stare, but returned the look evenly. "Because I'm paid to do it, ma'am."

Doctor Burnett sighed, disappointed by his response. "I thought you might say 'Because Napoleon had to be driven out of Portugal and must now be prevented from toppling the Spanish throne'."

"No doubt that would be Lord Wellington's view, ma'am. I've always found it best to leave military and political strategy to our commanding officers."

Doctor Burnett flushed, suspecting mockery, but Sharpe's expression was bland. "And yet you are an officer yourself."

"But one who's up from the ranks."

Doctor Burnett nodded; having already discovered that Sharpe's majority was hard won, and clung to just as fiercely.

"You don't trouble yourself with the ambitions of kings and emperors when you're face to face with a French dragoon," Sharpe continued,  "and you're trying to rip the bugger's guts out before he can do the same for you. Begging your pardon, ma'am."

The Doctor's mouth twitched involuntarily. "Major Sharpe, I was an army wife for two years, and have assisted my father in his work for the past eight. Believe me, whatever delicate sensibilities I possessed fell by the wayside long ago."

"My apologies, ma'am."

Doctor Burnett eyed the Major wonderingly. Was he was sorry for her choice of occupation, or for the loss of her finer feelings?

With Jackson now beyond all help, except perhaps that of the Almighty, there seemed little reason to prolong the meeting, but inexplicably, Sharpe found himself casting about for some other topic of conversation.

"You were missed at dinner, Doctor Burnett."

The doctor greeted the remark with a raised eyebrow. "I'm sure the only thing Colonel Blake 'missed' was the opportunity to point out, yet again, that this," she turned to indicate the rows of wounded men laid out around them, "is an unsuitable job for a woman. But then again, I don't suppose his views differ greatly from those of any other man."

Sharpe smiled inwardly, recognising a challenge when he heard one. "Only a fool would try to prevent a woman from doing what she knows she must."

He thought of his beautiful Isabella, wanting a better life for herself than that of a Lisbon whore, clawing her way determinedly up the social ladder to become wife to a lord.

And then inevitably, he thought of Teresa.

Commandante Teresa. L'Aguja. The needle. Their 'marriage' an expedient falsehood; their relationship stretched taut by long separation, but never broken, while she had fought the _guerrilla_, the 'little war,' high in the mountains, on battlefields and in besieged cities, only to be murdered in cold blood by an Englishman. Obadiah Hakeswill had always sworn to kill Sharpe, until a chance meeting allowed him to inflict an even greater pain. Now Teresa's family was raising Sharpe's infant daughter in a remote village. He had seen Antonia twice; in the smoking ruins of Badajoz, and at the mountain retreat of Teresa's relatives; both occasions all too brief.

The Doctor had intended to chide Sharpe for his careful response, but seeing his expression cloud, she remained silent.

Sharpe came to abruptly and found her studying his expression with interest. He returned the look for a long moment, then dropped his gaze and left the room.

Doctor Burnett remained staring at the door long after it had closed behind him.

Sharpe paused on the steps outside the infirmary to loosen his collar. Medical opinion dictated that fires burned constantly in sickrooms to dispel fever and in consequence, Doctor Burnett's infirmary had been unbearably hot.

"Major Sharpe!"

Sharpe turned to see Major Hewlin emerging from the shadow of the gateway that divided the inner and outer wards of the Castillo.

"Could I beg a minute of your time, Major? I promised this to your man Harris. Would you mind passing it on to him?" Hewlin dug in a pocket and produced a small book, which he held out toward Sharpe.

"Certainly, Major." Sharpe said, taking it from him and tucking it inside his jacket.

"And would you also offer him my apologies, "Hewlin continued. "I should have returned it to him long ago, but you know how it is. We must obey our masters, and go where we are ordered. I once lent a book to a fellow and it was two years before I saw it again. Recognised my own handwriting on the flyleaf."

Sharpe nodded and continued on his way, dismissing the odd feeling that Hewlin had been lying in wait for him.  He paused and turned back to see Hewlin standing where he had left him, looking up at the sky.

Sharpe hurried down the steps leading from the great hall and made his way through the castle grounds. Built seemingly in stages over a great many years, the courtyard consisted of a number of terraces and blind alleys on several levels, all of which appeared occupied on this balmy evening by Redcoats and Riflemen.

 "And _I_ had it on good authority from O'Dwyer. He swears it's true."

Sharpe looked over to see Sergeant Harper holding forth, in the company of the Chosen Men. They had tucked themselves away in a corner, their backs against the sun-warmed stone while they brewed a portion of their jealously guarded supply of tea over a campfire. Sharpe stepped over a prone Dobbs who was stretched out at the bottom of a shallow flight of steps.

"Bit crowded out here, isn't it? Has Colonel Blake changed his mind about having the men billeted inside?" Sharpe asked, taking a seat beside Harper.

Simpson opened his mouth and then closed it again at a warning glance from the big Irishman.

"Well, it's a fine night. Everyone wanted to make the most of the weather," Harper said cheerily.

Sharpe grunted. "If we get that thunderstorm Major Hewlin was promising, they'll be glad enough to get undercover." He looked up at the stars, innumerable pinpoints of light studding black velvet. Rain had been forecast practically every day for the past two weeks, but the sky remained obstinately cloudless.

"They'll stay out here, no matter what," the irrepressible Simpson burst forth.

Sharpe eyed the youngster, smiling. "Why's that then, Simpson?"

"Because of the ghosts, Major Sharpe. Mr. O'Dwyer's been telling everybody that the castle's haunted. Says you can't spit in that cellar without hitting a phantom something-or-other," Simpson insisted, gazing at Sharpe saucer-eyed.

"Ghosts?" Sharpe snorted. "There's no such thing. Tell him, Pat!" He looked toward Harper, expecting support, but the Sergeant just shrugged.

"You can never be too sure about these things, sir. My Uncle Fergus swore blind he saw the ghost of his great-granddaddy large as life in O'Neill's tavern in Kilrush, so he did."

"And you believed him?" Sharpe countered.  "You've always told me your Uncle Fergus was 'a rare one for the drink'."

"So was the ghost by all accounts. They had to throw him out come closing time. Never even bought a round," Harper replied with a grin.

"It's a very old building. You're bound to come across some wretched spectre dragging his chains through the dungeons where he was tortured until he begged for mercy," a sepulchral voice intoned from the shadows.

Sharpe rolled his eyes and turned to where Dobbs was redistributing his bulk more comfortably on the step, the better to continue his tale. "The Quartermaster has it that the ghosts are all from the same family. They plotted revenge against each other until there wasn't a man left standing. Rotten to the core, the lot of 'em."

"Your Mr. O'Dwyer has a hell of a lot to say for himself." Sharpe looked around at faces that were shaded an eerie orange-red in the glow from the campfire. "We've been here three days, and all of a sudden he knows the family history chapter and verse? He's having you on."

Dobbs studiously ignored Sharpe's baleful expression and sat up, fixing his gaze on the rest of his listeners in turn. "Dona Elena was the worst. Very beautiful, she was, but evil. It was said she could put such a powerful spell on a man that he'd do anything she asked. Anything at all."

Simpson sighed and nodded sagely, as if recalling the outrageous demands of any number of sorceresses.

Dobbs leaned in. "Word is, she lured her own husband up to the highest tower, where he was flung to his death by her scheming lover, and now her restless spirit walks the walls, waiting to ensnare another victim in her deadly embrace," he intoned, demonstrating this last by lunging at Simpson who obligingly yelped in fright.

Sharpe caught Harper sneaking a glance toward the darkened battlements. He fixed him with a steely eye. "There'll be another restless spirit walking the walls if you don't nip this in the bud, Sergeant Harper."

The Sergeant sighed. It was hard work keeping the garrulous Dobbs quiet at the best of times, but with a captive audience, he was well nigh unstoppable.

"Dona Elena must have been something of a siren."

Sharpe looked around. Dobbs' tale of the castle's previous inhabitants had apparently caught the attention of Harris.

Simpson frowned. "What's a siren?"

"A mythical maiden who lured sailors to their deaths with her enchanting song," Harris explained.

"Oh. Bit like a mermaid, then." The men nodded in agreement at Harper's suggestion.

"I've been told that sailors often mistake narwhals for mermaids."

Harper eyed Hagman in surprise. The crack shot among the Chosen Men generally preferred to listen rather than speak. Sharpe frowned, dredging his memory. His time aboard the _Pucelle_ had exposed him to a good deal of seafaring fact, and copious amounts of fiction. "Some sort of fish, isn't it?" he offered finally.

Harris beamed delightedly. "That's right, sir. Well, it's an arctic whale to be precise. The male of the species can be identified by its single spiral tusk, which can achieve five or six feet in length."

"And sailors mistake them for mermaids?" Dobbs enquired doubtfully.

"Depends how long they've been at sea, I suppose," Sharpe quipped.

Harper gazed heavenward, as if seriously considering his options. "Well, if I'd been cooped up on a ship, cheek by jowl with the likes of you for months on end, I'd be about ready to jump on a bloody great fish, so I would."

Harris grinned. "But what would you do if your fish had a bloody great tusk, Sergeant Harper?"

"Apologise, of course. Then run like the devil!"

Sharpe joined in the laughter, grateful that the talk had finally turned from tales of the supernatural to embrace the earthier concerns of the average soldier. 


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter 3

Sharpe leant against the wall of what he would term the Castillo's upper battery; he didn't know what the Spanish might call it, watching the sunrise. Jackson would have been eager to paint this moment, 'capture it in oils' as he liked to say. They had exchanged scraps of personal history now and then during the long march following the victory of Torre Vedras, leaving behind a grateful capital city to pass through a largely uncomprehending countryside.

The young man had apparently never imagined himself a soldier, though Sharpe hadn't the opportunity to discover exactly what had prompted Jackson to enlist. He had stood to inherit a profitable estate in Shropshire, with no real need to pursue any profession. Jackson Senior had suggested medicine or law as being worthy of study, but his son had yearned to pursue the life of a dissolute (he hoped) artist, keeping a studio and a mistress amid the bustle of London's Covent Garden.

Not wishing to disillusion him, Sharpe had wisely kept his memories of the great city to himself; the squalid alleyways leading down to the dockside, the flophouses and brothels, the dog fights in the yards behind the taverns, the knife fights in the gutter afterward over some drunken insult, and the orphanage where, unlike many of his fellows, he had survived long enough to escape it all.

Jackson had escaped too, in a way, courtesy of a French bullet. If it had been a French bullet.

Sharpe wondered why the circumstances of Jackson's death still nagged at him. After all, it wouldn't have been the first time that men had settled their differences under cover of combat. He and Harper had done the same thing themselves, dispatching that arrogant bastard Gibbons without ceremony, leaving him to be found behind enemy lines with his throat cut, and no questions asked.

Sharpe had spared Jane Gibbons that particular detail of her brother's death during a brief visit to England. Better that she believed the account inscribed on the stone tablet in the village church, even though her uncle, Colonel Henry Simmerson had claimed Sharpe's capture of the French Eagle as his own.

"Richard, my boy. There you are."

Sharpe turned to find Hogan beaming at him. The Engineer spared the eastern sky a passing glance. "Never mind gaping at the sunrise, lad. There'll be plenty more like that for you to look at. We must be on our way."

Sharpe straightened and followed Hogan across the courtyard to where a pair of horses waited, saddled and bridled, beside the main gate. Hogan gestured toward the larger of the two, a grey. "Richard, meet Esperanca."

Sharpe eyed his prospective mount warily. His distrust of horses was well known in the ranks and Esperanca's look of utter disdain suggested that this information had reached the equine community.

Hogan busied himself stowing a bulky cloth-wrapped bundle behind his horse's saddle. "Esperanca's a local girl," he grunted, struggling to fasten a buckle, "so she only understands commands made in Spanish." Hogan looked over his shoulder, grinning at the sight of Esperanca, who now leaned nonchalantly against Sharpe while attempting to tread on his foot. "Mind you, whether she'll obey them is another matter."

With some misgivings, Sharpe hoisted himself into the saddle as the sentries hauled open the Castillo's heavy gates.

"You'll find that the proprietor of this establishment is a woman of impressive girth and unswerving loyalty to our cause. The ale she serves is also… well, it's… palatable," Hogan said, sliding out of his saddle.

To Sharpe's eyes, the village they had arrived at was little more than a scattering of stucco lean-tos strung out along a cart track, and the inn, pointed out to him by Hogan, its centrepiece, only by reason of size; the sagging roof and shuttered windows suggesting neglect if not complete abandonment.

Sharpe looked around. A scrawny chicken scratched in the dust beside a handcart, while a somewhat threadbare dog dozed in the shade of a wooden shack that seemed on the verge of collapse. Hogan unclasped his saddlebag and nodded an affable greeting to an elderly groom who had appeared from the rear of the inn yard.

Sharpe, following the innkeeper along a narrow corridor, found himself mesmerized by the undulating hips beneath their covering of coarsely woven drab which grazed the wainscoting at every step. She was, as Hogan had promised, a woman of daunting dimension. The quantity of cloth required for her dress could have comfortably curtained the average drawing room.

Sharpe averted his eyes, lest she sense his scrutiny, but the woman continued on her way, oblivious, eventually swerving through a doorway at the end of the corridor with surprising agility for someone of her generous proportions.

He and Hogan were invited to enter what Sharpe assumed was a private room belonging to the innkeeper and her family. The dark wood panelling, reaching from floor to ceiling, had been buffed to a high gloss, while gold-framed portraits of lugubrious ancestors regarded the visitors with glazed derision from above the fireplace.

Hogan crossed to a solidly built refectory table, unwrapping the bundle he had retrieved from his saddlebag. He emptied its contents onto the polished surface and picked out a velvet frock coat from the assortment of clothing now revealed and held it up against his own blue uniform jacket.

Sharpe had rather expected the innkeeper to leave them to their own devices, but the lady seemed in no hurry to depart, and now arranged herself comfortably in a window seat.

Since Sharpe was hanging back, Hogan gestured to the jumble of fabrics piled on the table. "Help yourself, Richard." Sharpe prodded a pair of mulberry velvet breeches. "Since when do we have to dress up to meet with the partisans?"

Hogan shrugged into the frock coat, and then looked over at Sharpe, bland-faced. "Oh, did I not tell you, Richard? There's been a change of plan. We're to play the part of wine merchants, on a trip to town to meet one of our wealthier customers. I shall be Senor Herrero, and you… you can be Senor Afilado."

"Very funny."

As the exchange of one coat for another had effectively completed Hogan's transformation, the Engineer took a seat at the table, nodding encouragement to Sharpe, whose appearance still required attention.

Sharpe pulled off his jacket and tossed it onto a chair, then reached for a heavily embroidered frock coat, which lay in wait for him on the table.

Hogan eyed Sharpe's grubby shirt despairingly. Sharpe followed the look.

"What?"

Hogan sighed. "Wine merchant, Richard, not farm labourer."

Muttering darkly, Sharpe dragged the offending garment over his head, emerging from its folds to find the innkeeper eyeing his physique, head tilted and lips pursed, as if appraising the display of oranges on a market stall. Sharpe snatched up a pristine white shirt of fine lawn, finished at the neck and cuff with a generous fall of lace, and struggled into it.

Hogan's critical gaze now assessed Sharpe's second-hand cavalry trousers; perfectly serviceable for a Rifleman in King George's army, but hardly in keeping with Senor Afilado's position in society. Sharpe stole a glance at the innkeeper who was now leaning forward in anticipation of the high point of this morning's entertainment.

"Come now, Richard. Don't be shy," Hogan urged. "You've nothing that the Senora hasn't seen before."

Sharpe shot the engineer a murderous look. "We've not been introduced."

Hogan turned around and beamed at the innkeeper. "Mi amigo desearia saber su nombre."

Sharpe gaped at him. "Why did you tell her that?"

Instantly girlish, the innkeeper twirled a strand of hair around her finger and smoothed her skirt over her knees. "Felecia," she replied, smiling at Sharpe.

Hogan the matchmaker, looked from one to the other, and then directed a rapid stream of Spanish toward the simpering Felicia. Sharpe's grasp of the language, despite Teresa's frequently exasperated instruction, was rudimentary and he could only follow their exchange at a distance. 

At last, Felecia rose to her feet majestically and sashayed toward the door, pausing to favour Sharpe with a coquettish glance over one ample shoulder, before sweeping out of the room.

"What was that all about?" Sharpe demanded as the door closed behind her.

Hogan shrugged. "I merely said that you were such a gentleman that you insisted on sparing her blushes."

Sharpe eyed him suspiciously. "No you didn't!"

"All right, I confess. I told her you thought she was a fine looking woman, and that you'd like to pay her a visit after church next Sunday," Hogan replied, eyes twinkling with amusement. Glowering, Sharpe began to unbutton his trousers.

Hogan leant back in his chair and contemplated the whitewashed ceiling with an innocent expression. "Did I mention that she's a widow? Three times over, so I understand."

Sharpe snatched up a pair of velvet breeches, not trusting himself to respond.

They reached their destination at a little after noon, Hogan slowing his horse to a walk as they approached the walled city of Saldana. As expected, Esperanca responded to Sharpe's determined tug on the reins by reducing speed only when the mood took her.

They had made good time, despite Senora Felecia's insistence that they enjoy some bread and cheese and a pitcher of the house speciality before continuing their journey. Hogan had accepted her kind offer, smiling broadly, but warned Sharpe privately not to indulge in more than two measures of Felecia's home brew, since it was known to be of the insidious type that would have the innocent imbiber 'waking up in the gutter with no memory of the previous week.'

The Senora had accompanied Sharpe and Hogan to the stable yard and waited with them until the groom returned with their horses, admonishing them at length against venturing out in the midday sun without a hat, or falling in with strangers on lonely roads.

Sharpe had been particularly uneasy about parting company with his beloved green jacket, but Hogan had hinted that it would be the worse for them if they were apprehended and found to have British army uniforms among their baggage. The Senora, he was told, would guard it with her life.

Seeing Sharpe's dubious expression, Hogan had encouraged him to look on the bright side. "You could well return to find that those disreputable breeches of yours have been washed and pressed."

Judging by the look she gave him as she 'helped' him up into his saddle, Sharpe was convinced that Senora Felecia would be more than happy to press his trousers for him; preferably while he was still wearing them.

For the past few miles they had overtaken a varied selection of farm carts and exchanged greetings with other travellers on horseback. It seemed that merchants and market traders were descending on Saldana from far afield, and Hogan's explanation for their journey was accepted without question; their borrowed finery, incongruous in Senora Felecia's dining room proving unremarkable among the other visitors to this ancient and prosperous city.

They encountered the inevitable bottleneck as they drew closer to the city gate, becoming hemmed in by drays and handcarts as well as those on foot, who threaded their way through the stalled traffic, hailing friends and rival traders at full volume.

Tempers began to fray when a heavily laden cart suddenly lurched sideways and became wedged in a pothole in front of the gate. Sharpe watched as the carter, ambling back to assess the situation was accosted on all sides by those offering solutions, but little in the way of practical assistance.

Since leaving the inn, Sharpe had tried unsuccessfully to extract more information from Hogan about this mysterious change of plan, but the Engineer had merely wagged a finger and advised patience. Now he turned to Hogan again, still fishing.

"I don't suppose this 'wealthy customer' of ours will be too happy if we arrive late?"

Hogan waved a hand dismissively. "He'll wait for us, Richard, don't you worry."

Esperanca, unsettled by the crush of bodies and vehicles, strained against the harness. Sharpe tried to calm her, but she continued with her skittering side step each time a cart drew alongside, and when a dray lumbered past, jostling them vigorously, Esperanca finally decided that enough was enough and jostled it right back. Startled from his catnap, the driver turned around to glare at Sharpe.

Sharpe sighed. This was all he needed. They were stuck in this sweltering press, he was sweating inside a ridiculously heavy frock coat, and now the bloody horse had picked a fight. He smiled hesitantly at the indignant driver and offered what he hoped was an innocuous remark about the weather.

Hogan came to his rescue, leaning casually on the pommel of his saddle to engage the man in an animated discussion about the price of vegetables, the likely poor harvest ('wasn't it always?') and the possibility of rain before sundown, until Esperanca's bad manners were forgotten.  

Finally, they reached the city gates and passed through the short tunnel that connected Saldana to the outside world. As the sound of hooves on cobblestones echoed around him, Sharpe straightened in the saddle to ease his aching back, grateful for the momentary respite from the heat.

All too soon, they emerged once more into bright sunlight and joined the stream of market traffic as it laboured up a steep incline toward the main square. The winding street teemed with townspeople, who, heedless of wheels and hooves, darted across the road and ducked beneath the canvas awnings of the shops that lined the route. Sharpe gazed about him, amazed to find the city's everyday routine continuing, seemingly untouched by the destruction and bloodshed outside its walls.

Hogan indicated a side turning ahead, and moments later, they entered a tree-lined street where an avenue of spreading boughs shielded the imposing mansions of Saldana's first families from the common eye. 

The courtyard of La Casa Santa Pilar was a dazzling white square of burning hot paving stone. Sharpe and Hogan regarded it idly from the relative cool of the portico while they waited for news of their arrival to be conveyed to the villa's inhabitants. Fig trees in large planters surrounded a small fountain that plashed desultorily in the middle of the enclosure. The ripples from its bubbling centre spread outward to lap the rim of the marble pedestal and set a cluster of water lilies bobbing in their wake.

Sharpe imagined dipping a hand into the ice-cold bowl to splash his sunburned face and neck, or more likely, succumbing to heat exhaustion during the dozen paces it would take to reach it. In any case, effecting a wash and brush up in their host's water feature would not be appropriate behaviour from Senor Afilado, no matter that he was baking inside his absurd costume.

There had been water lilies on the lake inside the mountain fortress of Gawilghur. Sharpe recalled seeing mounds of fleshy leaves the size of dinner plates, mired in the half-drained reservoir, its slanted walls thickly coated in a stinking green slime. How long ago was that? Nine years? No, ten.

The renegade Englishman, William Dodd had ambitions to be Lord of Gawilghur by usurping the rightful heirs to the kingdom of Berar. But Ensign Richard Sharpe had an even greater incentive to acquit himself in the fierce battle to claim the 'unassailable' hilltop citadel. With the threat of court martial hanging over him, a suicidal mission to attack the heavily guarded gatehouse with just a handful of similarly reckless men was Sharpe's only option. Dodd suffered a traitor's death, his plans in ruins.

Sharpe had received his telescope from Lord Wellington some time afterward, his reward for saving the peer's life during the battle of Assaye. Sharpe smiled at the memory of the great man's muttered thanks, offered seemingly to the empty air beside his left ear. An aide had grinned sympathetically. Recognition from their commander-in-chief was a two-edged sword, capable of attracting admiration or enmity, had Sharpe used his celebrity to gain further favours.

As it was, a captaincy and transfer to the newly formed 95th Rifles had proved a mixed blessing. A belligerent Sergeant Harper had initially defied Sharpe's every order; the Chosen Men had regarded his elevation from the ranks as a personal insult, and the senior officers had seriously doubted his ability to lead the regimental bandsmen in a verse of _God Save the King_, let alone a detachment of battle hardened greenjackets against Napoleon's forces. 

Sharpe was returned to the present by a nudge from Hogan. He looked over to see a footman in charcoal grey livery skirting the courtyard; a shadowy figure flickering in and out of view as the man scuttled along the colonnaded walkway to join them.

Moments later, Sharpe and Hogan were being led along shaded corridors of polished marble by this deferential but monosyllabic guide, their route lined with heavily ornamented doors, closed against silent rooms. Sharpe expected the footman to halt at any moment and usher them into one of these salons, but he kept up a brisk pace, pattering ahead of them in neat black pumps, taking them up a wide stone staircase and along a second almost identical corridor.

The fronds on a potted palm quivered in the slight breeze created by their passage. Sharpe glanced aside, hearing the soft sound of women's voices from beyond one of the doors; a lazy fall of notes from some stringed instrument behind another. It was easy to imagine that the three of them were the only ones in the entire household actually on their feet during _siesta_.

As they mounted a narrow wooden staircase, Sharpe turned back to direct a quizzical glance at Hogan. The Engineer shrugged apologetically. The elaborate arrangements were not of his making.

Finally, as he negotiated a tight turn around a bulky ottoman, Sharpe caught sight of a lone Redcoat standing guard before a door at the far end of the passage.


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter 4

The room behind this particular door was small, square and low ceilinged, its design and location suggesting afterthought rather than an integral part of the mansion itself. The room was furnished in a similarly abstracted fashion; wooden benches, draped in threadbare tapestries ran along three walls beneath large windows, while a plain deal table that could never hope to gain admittance to the grand salons on the lower floors, took up what little space remained.

Sharpe's swift glance took in the expanse of glass that offered views of an orange grove, and the steeply sloping roof that would discourage eavesdroppers, his soldier's instinct marking it immediately as the ideal location for some clandestine meeting.

"For God's sake, sit down, Sharpe! It's bad enough being cooped up in a room the size of a blasted tea caddy without having you looming over us."

Startled, Sharpe registered Wellington's voice, Major Nairn's presence and the leather seat of the chair that Hogan swiftly drew out for him, in an instant. There was always a first time for everything and the opportunity to be seated in His Grace's company was one to be taken immediately, no matter that the invitation lacked finesse.

Sharpe clutched at the chair's curved arms in an effort to keep from slouching. The slippery upholstery had apparently offered its services to countless larger and heavier rear ends than his, possibly since the time of the Crusades, and the resulting depression in the seat threatened to swallow him up.

While he wasn't altogether surprised to find himself face to face with Lord Wellington, Sharpe was puzzled by the secretive arrangements required to effect the meeting. Previous audiences with the General had taken place in tents, or on dusty plains overlooking the field of battle. Why suddenly in an attic room in some mansion, a day's journey from the battalion's current location?

As if divining Sharpe's unspoken question, Lord Wellington pushed aside a document weighed down by official seals, and offered his apologies to the engraved silver surface of an inkstand that stood before him on the desk.

"However, Nairn, here, has convinced me of the necessity of such subterfuge if we are to discover the cause of our current… difficulties."

At this, Nairn's mouth, habitually set in a thin line, tightened further.

Wellington looked up suddenly and fixed Sharpe with a piercing stare.

"Why were we successful at Torre Vedras, Major Sharpe?"

"The design of your fortifications confounded General Masséna, sir."

"You've no need to flatter me, Sharpe. The work was planned by our engineers and carried out by sappers assisted by the local population. My part in it was to watch them do it."

"Yes, sir." Sharpe sighed resignedly, before continuing in the dispassionate tone reserved for the recitation of official reports, knowing that Wellington would have wrong footed him whichever approach he had chosen. "Masséna was unprepared for the extent and complexity of the fortifications and was unable to mount a sustained attack, being forced to retreat when his supplies of food and ammunition were exhausted."

"Quite so." Wellington nodded, seeming satisfied with Sharpe's concise assessment. "Masséna was, as you say, unprepared. His intelligence gatherers failed to discover one scrap of information regarding our strategy. The Portuguese involved were sworn to secrecy, and the loyalty of our own men went without question. Tight as a drum." The General paused, obviously discomfited. "Alas, that is no longer the case."

"Leaking like a bloody sieve." Nairn contributed his own dour simile. Wellington winced.

"It would seem that our strategy for driving the French back toward their own border has been based on inaccurate intelligence reports," the General went on. "I believe we have been deliberately misled."

Sharpe glanced at Hogan wondering if the Engineer had already known of this. He had, after all, questioned the wisdom of Colonel Blake's decision to occupy the Castillo de Benavento, despite its obvious shortcomings. Still puzzling, he returned his attention to Wellington.

"Several detachments have been ambushed where no French troops were expected," Wellington continued. "Others have arrived in a town or village, ready to engage the enemy, only to discover that Napoleon's men had either moved on weeks before, or were never there in the first place."

"Is that what happened at Benavento, sir?" Sharpe asked. In common with other officers, he had been briefed to expect a skirmish on the banks of the Esla, with few casualties, but not the arrival of the hundreds of Voltigeurs who had come thundering over the ridge to turn the encounter into a near rout.

Wellington grimaced and nodded. "I regret you were the victims of disinformation."

"Now that Masséna's been sent home in disgrace, a man named Renouf is the Emperor's new favourite. Unfortunately, he seems to know a great deal more about our movements than we do his," Nairn said.

Wellington looked toward Hogan. "It will be Major Hogan's unpleasant duty to cross examine those exploring officers under his command and attempt to determine the source of these false reports."

Hogan shifted in his seat, obviously troubled by the notion. "Those men were hand picked. I'd hate to think that any one of them had betrayed us to the French."

Sharpe eyed Hogan with sympathy. He had become accustomed to the Engineer's irrepressibly jaunty nature, which previously had allowed him to accept even the direst circumstance with equanimity. But now Hogan had sobered as never before. 

Wellington regarded Sharpe narrowly. "As for you, Major Sharpe, I shall need you to be my eyes and ears within the Castillo." He hesitated, as if debating the matter with himself. "This is in the nature of a request, rather than an order, you understand."

Nairn raised a disbelieving eyebrow, but said nothing.

"How do you know you can trust me?" Sharpe asked stiffly, adding rather belatedly, "sir."

Nairn uttered a barking laugh that set the glass rattling in the window frames. Wellington shot him a look.

"It's a fair question, Nairn." The General eyed Sharpe quizzically. This particular Rifleman was a walking contradiction. Any other officer, his allegiance called into question, would have fought the suggestion, citing rank and privilege as stays against disloyalty. But Sharpe, born in the gutter and assumed prey to bribery and corruption, was bristling at quite the opposite.

"Your methods have been what one might term unorthodox, Major Sharpe, and certain of your… exploits should have exacted stern punishment, but I have never doubted your loyalty to your men. Or to me."  

Sharpe fought the urge to smile at Wellington's allusion to the events at Assaye. Neither man discussed the incident freely.

"We all know that you cannot be bought, Richard." Hogan smiled encouragingly.

"More to the point, it's thought that you run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. In a manner of speaking," Nairn put in.

Sharpe regarded him coldly. "I've always found that the hare makes for better company. To my mind, the hounds spend too much time drinking and gambling away their inheritance. I know where I'd rather be. Sir."

Hogan's relief at Sharpe having kept his temper was almost palpable.

"Be that as it may, Sharpe, I shall require you to keep a foot in both camps. The man we seek may be hare or hound."

Sharpe held Nairn's gaze as Wellington spoke, and then turned to meet the Generals' grave expression.

"Very good, my Lord."

"You possess a degree of native cunning, I think." Wellington's tone managed to suggest admiration for such an attribute, while not actually wishing to own it himself.

Sharpe frowned, but finally decided to regard this pronouncement as a compliment. "Thank you, sir."  If it was native cunning that had kept him alive through twenty years of soldiering, over half his adult life, in fact, then it was something to be treasured.

"You'll need to keep your wits about you, Richard," Hogan said, eyeing him keenly.

"I'll do my best."

Wellington acknowledged Sharpe's response with a curt nod, and then began to shuffle some papers on the table, a signal that their business was concluded.

Sharpe and Hogan stood. Nairn got to his feet and walked with them to the door.

Major Hogan passed through first, and moved off along the narrow corridor. Sharpe made to follow him, but Nairn grabbed his arm, looking past him toward Hogan's retreating back. Sharpe resisted the temptation to shake himself free as they watched the Engineer disappear around the bend in the stairs.

"Spying's a dirty game, Sharpe," Nairn began in a gravelly undertone, "and spycatching's an even dirtier one. You must be prepared to turn over some pretty unsavoury stones while you're searching for this turncoat. Try not to be too disillusioned if you happen across a familiar face."

Sharpe noted Nairn's bleak expression. "Did you have someone particular in mind, sir?"

Nairn greeted the question with another mirthless laugh. "If we knew the answer to that one, Sharpe, we wouldn't need you."

Nairn had released his grip. Sharpe made a show of straightening his sleeve, and then stalked off, fuming. It was typical of Nairn to persuade him on some foolhardy and dangerous mission, as if he were the only one capable of carrying it out successfully, only to remind him that the decision was born of necessity, rather than confidence in his abilities.

"Sharpe?"

Sharpe stopped at the sound of Nairn's voice, and then turned to regard him balefully.

"Yes, sir?"

"Watch your back, lad."

"Yes, sir."

Nairn watched Sharpe out of sight and then returned to the attic room.

Hogan seemed to have regained a measure of his good humour, Sharpe noted as he descended the staircase, since the Engineer's eye held it's customary glimmer of amusement at life's absurdities. No sooner had he reached the bottom step, than the liveried servant glided noiselessly from an alcove, startling them both.

The return journey through the lower floors was as swift and silent as before. Sharpe stared fixedly at the back of their guide's head with its powdered queue, drawn back neatly into the neck and held with a black velvet bow. 

"It's not proper soldiering, is it though, Richard?"

Sharpe glanced at Hogan, certain that he had not voiced the thought.

"You didn't need to say anything, lad. I can see it in your face. You've been dragged halfway across Spain, on the hottest day of the year, for ten minutes in his Lordship's presence so that he can order you to smoke out a traitor."

"He called it a request," Sharpe replied, knowing that request or order, it made no difference. He had been given a task and he would see it through.

"We'll likely be kicking our heels in the Castillo for the time being. The General won't risk any more troop movements until he has information he can trust. But he hates this inactivity as much as you do."

Having delivered his charges safely back to the portico, the silent servant executed a stiff bow. Hogan nodded his thanks, and the man was gone in a rustling of charcoal silk. Whistling tunelessly, Hogan dug around in various pockets in search of his snuffbox, but instead discovered a gold coin.

"Heads or tails, Richard?"

Sharpe glanced at the coin, which Hogan now balanced on thumb and forefinger. "Which one of us will tackle the redoubtable Senora Felecia?" Hogan asked, grinning as Sharpe paled visibly. "I only meant," he continued with an innocent air, "that we have still to recover our uniforms from that most excellent woman."

"Heads," Sharpe growled.

Hogan flipped the coin. Sharpe watched the gold piece as it spun high in the air. Hogan captured it neatly on the back of his left hand, swiftly covering it with his right. He lifted his fingers away to peer at the result, and then regarded Sharpe gravely.

"Oh, dear."

Lord Wellington was paging through a sheaf of documents when Nairn rejoined him.

"So much for hiding a leaf in a forest."

Nairn took the paper that was thrust at him along with the General's terse comment. He scanned it briefly, and then let it drop onto the table.  "I thought he was 'our best man'."

"So did I," Wellington muttered. "I very much doubt that 'native cunning' will be enough to protect Sharpe against this particular enemy." He looked toward Nairn who now stood by the window.

"Oh, I wouldn't underestimate him, your Grace," Nairn replied, his attention fixed on the distant hills. "I've no doubt Sharpe can escape a knife between the ribs in a dark corner as easily as he avoids a French bayonet. He bears a charméd life."

"I hope to God you're right, Nairn. This would be a fine way to repay the man."  

Nairn stared at Wellington in surprise. "You've more than repaid the debt, my Lord. You owe him nothing further." He returned to his study of the view beyond the villa's orangery, leaving Wellington to ponder his situation.

"Sledgehammer to crack a nut, Major Sharpe!"

Sharpe stared resolutely at a spot on the wall behind Colonel Blake's head. He had been trying unsuccessfully to convince the Colonel that a second mission to Benavento was not just desirable but essential. Unfortunately, his 'feeling' that there might be something amiss down in the valley was deemed insufficient reason.

Colonel Blake had held forth at great length about his practice of basing tactical decisions entirely on facts and figures, throwing in some complicated calculations of the type favoured by Major Crauford for good measure. Sharpe's expression solidified. Certain officers found 'Black Bob' and his methods insufferable, and Crauford for his part, had viewed the Rifles' groundbreaking practices with equal contempt.

Sharpe glanced toward Major Hewlin who was leaning back in his chair with the air of a man biding his time. As if on cue, the Major leant forward and smiled at Blake and Sharpe in turn. "If I may, Colonel, Major…" Hewlin paused. Blake nodded for him to continue. "Given the… um… exceptional circumstances in which we find ourselves regarding the… er…" Hewlin coughed delicately and shot a meaningful glance toward the Colonel, which seemed somehow to exclude Sharpe. "His Grace has of course apprised you of the situation, sir?"

Colonel Blake, though he had not the slightest idea what Hewlin was talking about, nodded vigorously and shuffled the papers on his desk to cover his confusion. "Why yes, of course, indeed, I take your point, Major Hewlin. You must do as you think fit. Take whatever steps you think necessary."

"Thank you, Colonel Blake." Hewlin rose, bowed and exited in one seamless movement, offering Sharpe the merest hint of a smile as he passed, and since the matter seemed to have been decided, Sharpe rose to follow him.

"A very fine man, that Major Hewlin."

Sharpe turned to find the Colonel gazing at the now closed door as if an afterimage of the exemplary Major still shimmered there.

"Yes, sir."

As far as Sharpe could see, Hewlin had offered even less in the way of evidence that the garrison was in danger of attack than he had, and yet somehow, the Major's masterly execution of nods and winks had achieved in ten seconds what Sharpe had failed to do in ten minutes.

"Has his finger on the pulse, eh, Sharpe? Knows what's what. You'd do well to follow his example," Blake continued.

Sharpe swallowed mutinously and bit his tongue. Hard.


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter 5

The man, dark haired and bearded, removed his broad-brimmed hat and held it over his heart. Inclining his head, he offered his sincere condolences. He had never met Commandante Teresa, but he knew of her. Who among them had not heard of l'Aguja? A brave woman, and a great loss, both to the cause and obviously, to her husband. Sharpe nodded and turned away from the man's heartfelt words, feeling a prickling behind his eyes and the familiar stab of pain.

Alvaro was the leader of the partisans in the region and on this bright morning, escort to Sharpe, Hewlin and the men as they journeyed toward the village of Benavento. The prescribed circuitous route had taken them high into the surrounding hills, along a narrow and winding track better suited to the nimble-footed goats, which scattered at their approach, than heavily laden infantry.

Alvaro hoped the Senor would excuse his slipping between their two languages, but the appropriate English word did not always present itself. They would normally have been five, he explained, gesturing toward the distant figures of Emilio, Carlos and Juan, who scouted ahead of the main party, but his family had suffered a bereavement of their own. His younger brother had been found murdered six weeks ago.

Felipe had been working with one of Lord Wellington's exploring officers, acting as a guide for the Englishman while he mapped this mountainous region. They had gone to make a preliminary inspection of the pass, but failed to return. Alvaro indicated the green hills behind them. In winter, the snow would render them inhospitable, impassable in places, but for now, the going would be relatively easy.

These were dangerous times, of course, but though Felipe was young, he was more experienced than most. After all, he had been finding his way through the mountains since he was so high. Alvaro's eyes filled with tears as he stooped to indicate a short distance from the ground, hand held out, palm down.

Sharpe nodded his understanding. "What happened to them?"

Alvaro spread his hands in a hopeless gesture. They had searched for days and finally found Felipe's body half-hidden in the undergrowth. As expected, wild animals had found him first, but what remained was still recognisable to those who knew him. There had been no mistaking the single stab wound to the heart. The fate of the exploring officer was unknown. They had only discovered Felipe's body by chance; the Englishman's remains might lie anywhere.

No wonder Hogan had been so quiet on the journey back from Saldana, Sharpe thought. Was the missing exploring officer one of his men?

"This Englishman, do you know his name?" he asked.

Alvaro shook his head. "No, Senor. I never met him."

Sharpe nodded his thanks and in halting Spanish, extended his sympathy to Alvaro for the loss of his brother. The Spaniard bowed and moved off to rejoin his companions.

Sharpe's long strides soon brought him level with the Chosen Men who ambled along the dusty track, their bantering carried to him on the warm breeze. The talk was of the spoils to be had from dead Frenchmen after a battle. Sharpe smiled. It might seem callous to discuss the desirability of an enemy's personal effects, but better that than imagining yourself blown apart by cannon fire and having your own tattered remains similarly plundered.

"I wouldn't say 'no' to a little silver snuffbox myself, " Dobbs was saying, "but I'd want something pretty on the lid, like a shepherdess, in one of those frilly dresses with bows on, showing off a bit of you know…"

Grinning lasciviously, Dobbs demonstrated his preference in rustic ladies' fashions, his sweeping gesture describing a neckline so low that the average shepherdess would have caught her death of cold.

Harper snorted. "I'll send on ahead and order one for you, shall I?"

Put out, Dobbs folded his arms. "I'm just saying I wouldn't want one like Major Hewlin's."

"What's wrong with the Major's snuffbox then?" Sharpe asked as he fell into step beside Dobbs.

"It's got a picture of some miserable looking bloke on the lid. You wouldn't want to have to look at that every time you took a pinch."

"But it's Voltaire!" Harris exclaimed, aggrieved.

"Who?"

"Voltaire. The French writer? _The_ major figure of the Enlightenment?" Harris studied his comrades' faces expectantly, but they remained stubbornly unenlightened.

Seizing the opportunity to educate his fellow men, Harris continued doggedly. "Voltaire was a playwright and poet. He wrote a satirical novel, anti-religious tracts, the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_. He was imprisoned in the Bastille and then forced into exile." He paused. The others remained singularly unimpressed. "Oh, and he was Royal Historiographer to Frederick the Great." His voice trailed off.

Dobbs sucked his teeth meditatively and squinted toward the horizon.

"So he didn't have what you'd call a proper job, then?"

Harris sighed and was about to utter the word 'Philistine' but then changed his mind. It would only require further explanation. He eyed Dobbs slyly and decided on a different tack.

"It was said that when he died," he began, leaning in conspiratorially, "the city of Paris refused him a Christian burial. His friends were afraid that his remains would be desecrated, so his body was spirited away in the dead of night, propped up in a carriage, under the full moon, looking for all the world as if he were still alive."

Exchanging the intellectual for the ghoulish had the desired effect. A gaping Dobbs raised an astonished eyebrow, Simpson let out a low whistle and Harper crossed himself murmuring "God save Ireland!"

Sharpe, long inured to the peculiarities of foreigners, merely wondered, not for the first time, if there were any limit to Harris's fund of useless information. He checked, suddenly remembering his conversation with Hewlin outside the infirmary. Rummaging in his pack, he rediscovered the book pressed on him by the Major. "Harris!"

Harris turned. "Yes, sir?"

"Major Hewlin asked me to give you this." 

Harris took the dog-eared cloth-bound volume that Sharpe held out to him, exclaiming delightedly "Ah! _La Nouvelle Hėloise,_" as he traced the title, picked out in gold leaf, with a reverent finger.

"He said sorry for keeping you waiting or not passing it on to you sooner. Something like that," Sharpe said, unable to recall Hewlin's exact words.

Harris nodded, vaguely wondering why Major Hewlin felt the need to apologise. The loan of the book had only been suggested a day or so earlier. Forty-eight hours' delay hardly warranted pardon.

Dobbs looked over. "Don't you ever read anything in English, Harris?"

Harris frowned. "Well, yes. But the only book doing the rounds at the moment is Lieutenant Cole's copy of _Robinson Crusoe_, and I've read it three times."

"Oh," Dobbs said, having yet to read it once.

"The French have a long-standing tradition of literary excellence," Harris said, desperate to fight Rousseau's corner.

"When they're not trying to blow your head off with grapeshot," Sharpe countered. 

"Is there any fighting in it?" Simpson asked, nodding toward the well-thumbed volume.

"Er… no. It's a series of letters. A young girl and her tutor engage in some fascinating philosophical debate…" Harris began.

"You need to have fighting," Simpson cut in, frowning. "Women are all very well, but a good story needs a good fight."

Harris sighed and began to leaf through his prize.

"Harris," Sharpe growled.

"Yes, sir?"

"Later."

"Yes, sir." Reluctantly, Harris tucked the book inside his jacket.

Looking along the track, Sharpe noticed Hewlin's men crowding around a large outcrop of rock. He quickened his pace and went to investigate.

He found the men filling their water bottles from a shallow stream, hardly more than two feet wide, which ran beside the road. Hewlin acknowledged Sharpe's arrival with a rueful smile. "Thought we might as well take advantage of the facilities. Saves issuing a dozen separate tickets." Sharpe shrugged, but agreed with Hewlin's reasoning. They would lose more time if every man requested permission to fall out individually.

Shading his eyes against the sun, Sharpe followed the path of the stream, observing that it ran beside the track for some forty yards before disappearing into a culvert formed by a fall of rock. Sharpe nodded to Sergeant Harper to allow the Riflemen to fill their water bottles, and then wandered over to inspect a niche in the rock formation that had caught his eye.

Sheltered by the overhanging rock, a crudely drawn image, no doubt contributed by some ancient inhabitant of the region, peeked from behind a more delicately fashioned statuette of the Virgin. Almost featureless from long exposure to the elements, the statuette's robes hung in narrow folds of palest pink and green. Spring water bubbled from the rock just beneath the niche and splashed into a stone trough a few feet below.

"It's an old tradition. Fresh flowers are left here for Our Lady, every day, without fail."

Sharpe turned to find Alvaro standing a few paces behind. "A young girl is chosen for the task by the women of our village, but her identity is kept secret," the Spaniard continued with an embarrassed smile. "The women won't tell, and we men don't ask."

Sharpe stared at Alvaro, then turned back to look again at the shrine. Silently, he moved aside to allow the other man a clear view.

The flowers that covered the Virgin's feet had obviously been there for some time; a bundle of stems lay bleached and baked to the ledge; wilted blooms drooped toward the trough where a sodden flower head bobbed forlornly, battered by the fall of water.

Sharpe reached out to pluck at a leaf. It crumbled to dust in his fingers. Alvaro turned a horrified gaze to Sharpe, struggling to convey the enormity of this neglect.

"This has never happened before," he whispered. "Never."

Some years ago, as a newly promoted captain, Sharpe had been openly sceptical of the folklore surrounding the gonfalon of Santiago, and had berated its keeper, Don Blas Vivar, for deflecting him from his official mission. But having witnessed the effect on the morale of the Spanish people as the ragged pennant fluttered above the church in the town's main square, he had grown to respect local tradition. Consequently, Sharpe recognized Alvaro's fears as genuine and wasted no time in urging his men to a quick march. 

Dawdling at the back of the line, Private Poulter sighed deeply and Private Slade shook his head at the brisk pace being set by their comrades. The pair had become firm friends during the voyage from England, finding themselves among the few not stricken by seasickness, and so passed the time in amiable conversation, surrounded by the prostrate forms of the less robust. 

Poulter and Slade had been anxious to complete their basic training, finding the endless drills and forced marches across the dormant countryside dull in the extreme, but discovered to their dismay that active duty seemed to involve the same tedious routine, only in hotter weather.  

Sweating profusely, Poulter made a half-hearted attempt to keep up with the others, red-faced and panting with the effort. "All I'm saying is, there's something funny about the place. One minute they were there, next minute… gone."

Sergeant Harper, striding down the line, intent on bucking up the stragglers, overhead this last and guessed immediately the topic of conversation. The disappearance of the French troops from the Castillo had somehow achieved the status of myth and legend among the more impressionable members of the battalion.

Oblivious of Sergeant Harper's menacing bulk, Poulter continued to bend the ear of his companion. "How do they move around without being seen, that's what I want to know." 

Harper leaned in close to Poulter's ear. "They go up in a puff of smoke, same as we do."  Poulter startled. The Sergeant regarded him straight-faced. "If I were you, lad, I'd keep quiet about vanishing Frogs, particularly when you're around Major Sharpe, or you'll be wishing you could pull the same trick yourself."

Poulter gulped and nodded. Slade straightened his shoulders, looking around nervously as if the Major might materialise beside them at any moment. Sharpe had acquired a fearsome reputation among the new recruits, his exploits at Talavera and Badajoz recounted frequently with suitable awe. Even so, keeping a respectful distance was thought far safer than falling under the dour Rifleman's gimlet eye.

Marching at the head of the column, Sharpe looked to his left and saw a tumble of pan-tiled roofs nestling in the hollow of the surrounding hills. Smoke from kitchen fires curled lazily from a scattering of chimneys. Despite the presence of the British troops billeted there, life in the hamlet would be continuing as usual. Nevertheless, Sharpe was finding Alvaro's unease to be infectious; the partisans' anxious glances and muttered conversation making him distrust the apparently tranquil scene below. He unslung his rifle, checking and rechecking the firing mechanism before returning it to his shoulder.

Two sentries guarded the main road into the village of Benavento where an ancient hump-backed bridge spanned the river Esla at its narrowest point. The younger of the two men took a deep breath and nudged his companion. They both looked toward the column of Redcoats and their green-jacketed escort which now rounded a bend in the road.

The older sentry gave a contemptuous snort. An escort of Portuguese. Whoever heard of such a thing? His comrade, better informed, assured him that the green jackets belonged not to Portuguese but to Riflemen. A different kettle of fish altogether. They were a danger to them, then? No, not if they kept their heads.

Sharpe approached the men on the bridge. "My name is Major Sharpe of the Ninety-fifth Rifles. I've orders from Colonel Blake for Lieutenant-Colonel…"

"Evers. Lieutenant-Colonel Evers," Hewlin supplied quickly.

"Evers," Sharpe said, ignoring the interruption. "We're to relieve the garrison."

He eyed the sentries dubiously. Both men seemed uncomfortable in the extreme, the younger one shuffling his feet and gulping for air like a landed trout. "What's the matter, soldier?" Sharpe demanded. "Cat got your tongue? Where will I find headquarters?"

Swallowing painfully, the guard eventually stammered. "… Place…" His fellow sentry shot him a look. The boy cleared his throat and made another attempt at speech. "The market place," he breathed, his voice barely above a whisper.  

Sharpe caught Harper's eye as he turned away. The Sergeant offered a wry smile. Sharpe shrugged and then walked on a few paces, scanning the empty roadway. Colonel Evers had doubtless sequestrated one of the larger buildings in the village square, if this hamlet possessed such a thing. 

Fortunately, it did, although the short walk to what turned out to be little more than a courtyard was to Sharpe's mind somewhat unsettling. The narrow streets were deserted. There were no children, no dogs, not even the customary black-clad grandmother ensconced on a doorstep.  Sharpe and his men had left the Castillo before dawn and it was not yet nine o'clock, yet there was not a soul around. No one running errands, or tackling household chores before the rising temperature made inactivity an inviting prospect.

Sharpe noted chalk marks on one or two doors as they passed, which meant that troops had been billeted there, but where were they now?

As if on cue, half a dozen Redcoats marched across the road some way ahead, but none glanced in their direction. Sharpe looked toward Major Hewlin, who appeared equally puzzled by their strange reception at the guard post, and their now seeming invisibility.

Sharpe approached the house, which he supposed Evers had chosen as his headquarters and was about to push open the heavy door when a musket ball thudded into the stone lintel above his head. Instantly the rifle was off his shoulder and in his hand. He slammed back into the shallow porch, searching for the source of the attack.

Harper was pressed against the wall on the opposite side of the porch. Sharpe saw the Sergeant reloading his rifle, shaking his head in disbelief. The sun, rising behind the buildings on the other side of the square favoured the sniper. Sharpe squinted into the glare and sighted his gun on the figure that scrambled across the rooftops. Incredibly, it appeared to be a Redcoat.

Orders crackled in the air as sergeants pulled their men into line to return fire. Sharpe saw the square filling with the more familiar blue uniforms and white cross-belts of Napoleon's troops as his own men dispersed, running for whatever cover they could find.

Harper aimed and brought down the sniper on the roof, then turned to dispatch another Frenchman before the first had crashed onto the cobblestones. Sharpe measured the distance between their position and a low wall that enclosed one side of the courtyard. Harper reloaded his rifle, nodding to Sharpe that he should make a break for it.   

A French soldier saw Sharpe burst from the shelter of the porch and veered to cut off his escape. Sharpe swung his rifle like a club and battered the gun from the man's hand. He staggered and tried to aim again, but Sharpe shoved him aside.

The wall was just a few feet away now. Sharpe glanced behind him. A second Frenchman was taking aim. He leapt and grasped the top of the wall, hauling himself over it as a musket ball thudded harmlessly into the stonework. 

Sharpe landed with a bone-jarring thump on a patch of rough ground and slithered down a steep slope, clawing at tufts of grass until his progress was finally halted by the marble wall of a substantial memorial to one of Benavento's departed citizens. Winded, Sharpe staggered to his feet and found himself hemmed in by rows of gravestones.

Keeping low, Sharpe dodged between the weathered slabs, heading toward the sound of gunfire. The fight was obviously continuing in the surrounding streets. He paused to reload his rifle in the shade of a tree, and then crept forward again.

By noon, Benavento's main street was littered with bodies. Sergeant Harper picked his way over the tangle of limbs, looking to left and right for any sign of French troops. Every time he thought he'd seen the last of them another snarling face appeared from around a corner. He turned at the sound of running feet and saw Harris, Dobbs and Simpson racing down the street. "Have you seen Major Sharpe?" Harper asked as they slowed to a trot.

Harris bent forward, hands on his knees, sucking in air. He shook his head. "Thought he was with you."

"It's all quiet in the village square now," Dobbs offered. "The Major might have gone back to look for survivors."

Sergeant Harper doubted that Sharpe would have any luck there. Judging by the scenes that greeted him inside many of the houses, the garrison had been taken by surprise. Several men had been killed where they sat, at tables set for breakfast, their weapons racked and out of reach. Ordering the others to return to the square, Harper hastily reloaded his rifle and went in search of the villagers. Where would frightened people go when it seemed that all hell had been let loose? He thought the church would be a likely place to start.

Sharpe moved carefully along a deserted alleyway, noting the bodies of a Redcoat and a Frenchman slumped against the wall. The sound of his boots crunching on gravel was all that broke the silence.

He turned to survey the empty backstreet. Since leaving the churchyard and beating off attackers seemingly at every step, Sharpe had lost his bearings. Was he moving toward the village square, or away from it? He checked at the faint sound of a footstep, and glanced over his shoulder. Nothing. He must have imagined it. He took another step and then gasped as a musket ball struck him in the shoulder and sent him sprawling in the dirt.

Sharpe scrambled to his feet and looked around for his rifle, which lay a few feet away. Reaching for it should have been simple, but he found himself staring stupidly at a right arm that hung limply at his side, refusing to obey the order to pick up the gun.

A second musket ball grazed his cheek. Sharpe fell back, clutching his shoulder. Blood was already soaking through his jacket and pulsing steadily between his fingers. His knees buckled and he pitched forward onto the ground.

Someone was trying to heave him over onto his back. Sharpe, barely breathing, smiled. If this was some Frog hoping to find something of value sewn into his jacket, he was going to be disappointed. This tattered and patched uniform ought to tell him that it wasn't worth the effort.  A hand grasped Sharpe's chin roughly and turned his head this way and that. 

"Sergeant Harper! Over here!"

Sharpe frowned, trying to identify the speaker.

"God save Ireland! Major Sharpe, sir!"

That was Sergeant Harper, obviously. But the other?

He strained to comprehend the terse exchange that seemed to come from some far off place.

Ah, yes. Of course. Major Hewlin.

Sharpe nodded, pleased to have solved the puzzle and lapsed into unconsciousness.


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter 6

George Baxter sank a finger into the oozing wound, frowning when his none too gentle probing, knuckle deep, in the torn and bloody flesh failed to discover the musket ball that had inflicted the damage. He withdrew the finger and wiped his hand on the front of a once-white apron, now streaked with gore. "In too deep," he remarked to no one in particular.

If the ball were to somehow work its way to a shallower position, it could be removed; if not, it would remain embedded. The patient, should he survive the shock, loss of blood and likely infection, would carry this souvenir of war for the rest of his life.

The doctor turned from the Redcoat laid out on the rough deal table and bent over the next man in line, shaking his head at the sight of a deep sword cut to the stomach that gaped obscenely. He prodded the wound perfunctorily. There was little to be done for such an injury. He signalled an orderly to remove the man to the undercroft.

Baxter straightened, kneading the small of his back with his fists. Helen, moving between the rows of wounded carrying a bowl of clean water, noted her father's weary expression. She set down the bowl and crossed the room to lay a hand on his arm. "You're exhausted. Why not let me finish up here?" she offered quietly.

Baxter looked down at the floor, considering her suggestion, but jerked his head up suddenly as the door crashed back on its hinges to admit two Riflemen, staggering under the weight of a third, roughly supported between them.

George Baxter heard his daughter's sharp intake of breath and recognised Major Sharpe's bowed head in the same moment. Helen recovered in an instant and hurried over to the men to relieve them of their burden.

"Took a bullet just below the shoulder," Harper said as he eased Sharpe's semi-conscious form on to a nearby table. Doctor Burnett nodded as she removed the makeshift bandage with fingers that with effort, remained steady, and assessed the injury.   

Leaning in, Helen examined the wound. "The ball entered here and…" Indicating that Sergeant Harper should assist, she turned Sharpe on to his left side and bent to inspect the damage now revealed. "…And has probably lodged here." She pressed the swollen flesh at the top of Sharpe's arm and sighed deeply. The Major had barely made a sound since his arrival, and seemed oblivious to his surroundings. "This is going to be difficult," she said, glancing at Harper. "Fluid is collecting here, under the skin."

"Fluid?" Harper eyed Doctor Burnett guardedly.

"Blood. A splinter of bone may have punctured a vein," Helen replied, avoiding mention of an artery for her own sake as much as the Sergeant's.

Doctor Baxter surveyed his collection of surgical instruments, fingering the handle of the largest of the bone saws, the serrated blade showing dull grey beneath crusted blood. "Best we amputate, my dear. The sooner we act, the better his chances will be."

"No!" Helen's violent reaction startled both Doctor Baxter and Sergeant Harper. "I'm sure the arm can be saved, Father. Please, leave it to me."

Baxter opened his mouth and seemed about to object, but noting the determined set of his daughter's mouth, he shrugged and moved away. 

Sharpe was back in the small square room in La Casa Santa Pilar. At least, that was where he seemed to be. It was too dark to be certain. He could see Wellington's hawk-like features in the glow from the candles in a wrought iron chandelier which hung low over the table as the General reached across to… do what? Sharpe craned his neck in an effort to glimpse the tabletop, but the chair he was sitting in seemed determined to drag him down, or perhaps he was becoming smaller?

The curved arms were rising higher and higher on either side of him, like cliffs of carved oak. The candles in the chandelier, multiple suns that flamed overhead, dazzled him.

Wellington was speaking. Sharpe saw his lips move but the words sounded inside his head. The General seemed to be arguing with someone seated opposite. Though he tried, Sharpe could not turn his head, seeing only a lace cuff where it rested on the edge of the table, and the glint of gold from a signet ring. A voice cut across Wellington's, speaking in French, the forceful tone finally drowning out the other's words.

Sharpe jerked awake, gasping as the torn muscles in his shoulder protested at the sudden movement. With the breath rasping in his throat, he stared up the vaulted ceiling of the infirmary, the curving stonework showing grey in the early light.

Sharpe frowned. He must still be asleep. That insistent voice was continuing its one-sided argument in French, somewhere off to his right. No, he was awake. He could feel the rough wool blanket beneath his fingers, and the flagstones at his back. He tried to turn his head, but it required too great an effort.

Sharpe lay back and closed his eyes, only to be woken again a few minutes later when an icy draught swept through the room, an almost tangible chill that unrolled like a carpet of freezing fog. A door banged shut, rattling the windows. Sharpe shivered and tugged at the thin blanket, drawing it up to his chin. The voice had fallen silent.

"Come on, Harper. Spit it out!"

Harper shifted from foot to foot. He had been putting off telling Sharpe the worst details of the massacre in the village for several days, but on discovering that the Major had finally escaped the infirmary and was taking the air in the walled garden, he had had to concede that the time for concealment was over. He fixed his gaze on the unkempt shrubbery and took a deep breath.

Doctor Burnett, tending another of her patients a few yards away, looked over as Sharpe let loose a stream of invective and slammed his fist into the wall in frustration. Harper regarded him impassively, while inwardly admiring the colourful combination of phrases that Sharpe had employed, doubtless culled from his time aboard one of His Britannic Majesty's ships of the line, some years earlier.

"I'll thank you not to aggravate my patient, Sergeant Harper."

Harper glanced at Doctor Burnett, sketching a salute. "Begging your pardon, ma'am, but it's Major Sharpe's lot in life to be aggravated by his Sergeant." Doctor Burnett sighed. Harper's tone was artificially light. She didn't need to be told the subject of their conversation. The entire camp knew of the scenes of carnage that had greeted the men of the South Essex after they had retaken the village.

Initially, she had been surprised to find the big Irishman a frequent visitor to Sharpe's bedside, but had come to realise that a strong bond existed between the two men, and ceased to regard Harper's presence in the sickroom as strange. 

Sharpe slumped onto a bench, clutching his shoulder and wincing in pain. Venting his spleen against the stonework had done nothing for torn muscles that had still to heal.

"They killed everyone in the village?" Sharpe demanded hoarsely.

Harper sank down onto a low wall, hands dangling limply between his knees. "It looked that way, sir."

He knew that Sharpe had seen the bodies of their own men, sprawled across their path as they fought their way through the streets. What the Major had not seen were the civilian dead, inside the church where they must have gathered for safety, when it seemed that the British garrison could no longer offer protection.

Harper was about to add that for the French, it had been like shooting fish in a barrel, but thought better of it, uncomfortably aware that their own position in the Castillo was similarly vulnerable. Colonel Blake had reacted in typical blustering fashion, branding the French tactic of disguising themselves in British uniform as 'underhand' and 'unsporting,' but he was also fearful of being branded incompetent for having ordered their occupation of the hilltop position in the first place.

Sharpe drew a long breath and stared at the ground. "Thanks, Pat."

Harper shrugged, embarrassed. "It was Major Hewlin found you and patched you up. Ruined a good silk shirt on your account, so he did. He was wounded himself, but he's up and about again now."

"Oh. I didn't know that."  

Sharpe still had a good deal to discover about the attack on the village, having only a vague memory of events. Harper told Sharpe how close he had come to losing his arm to the pragmatic Doctor Baxter, but for the daughter's battling to keep him whole. "Fussing over you like a mother hen, so she was," he continued.  "'You leave that limb right where it is,' says she. 'He's no good to me damaged'."

Sharpe eyed the grinning Irishman dubiously.

Still smirking, Harper leant forward to trace the line of a broken paving stone. He looked up as a shadow fell across his outstretched arm.

Doctor Burnett had appeared behind him and was standing looking toward Sharpe, holding out a tin cup. Harper ducked his head to hide a smile and then eased himself gingerly from his perch.

"Well, I'd best be off now, sir. Don't want to interfere with the dispensing of your…er… medicine," he said, struggling to keep a straight face, before beating a hasty retreat, keenly aware of Sharpe's savage look boring into his back.

Sharpe peeled his gaze from the retreating figure and turned it on the cup, which now hovered under his nose. He and the doctor engaged in what had become an habitual silent battle of wills before Sharpe finally conceded defeat and took it from her.

He peered into the murky depths, swirling the liquid around. "Be careful, it's hot," Doctor Burnett said as she bent to put her arm around his shoulder. She flushed, realising somewhat belatedly that the Major had recovered his strength over the past few days and no longer required a helping hand.

Sharpe sipped dutifully while registering the unnecessary but not unwelcome assistance with a sideways glance, which the Doctor affected not to see. "What did you say this was?" he asked.

"Alecost," Doctor Burnett said, casting about for an example of the herb. The plant she sought was growing a few feet away in a corner. "That's it over there." Grateful for an excuse to end the awkward embrace, the Doctor crossed the narrow pathway and pointed to a cluster of grey-green leaves.

"It's also known as costmary or Bible leaf, because it makes a good bookmark." She plucked a leaf and held it up, then mimed slipping it between the pages of a book. Sharpe nodded absently, having little interest in the raw material for this disgusting brew.

He watched as Doctor Burnett stooped and pushed her fingers into the earth around the plant's roots, muttering to herself.  Eventually she stood, brushing the dirt from her hands and returned to sit on that part of the wall recently vacated by Sergeant Harper. Sharpe noticed that she now held the leaf in her lap, rolling the stem idly between finger and thumb.

"Those plants have become very woody and straggly." Doctor Burnett gestured toward the overgrown bed. "The roots should have been divided earlier in the year. They need more room to grow."

Sharpe raised an eyebrow at the idea of Napoleon's troops finding time to cultivate a herb garden. The doctor saw Sharpe's mouth twitch and flushed again. She looked down at the leaf in her hand, pretending to study the intricate network of veins. Sharpe took another sip and tried to swallow without shuddering.

"I'm sorry. It really should be sweetened with sugar, but there was none to be had," Doctor Burnett said suddenly, looking up at Sharpe.

There was precious little to be had of anything among the Company's stores. The expected supply wagons had failed to arrive, but whether from attack by the French, or misdirection by the unknown spy in their midst, Sharpe could not say.

He waved aside the apology with a tight smile and braced himself to drain the cup and have done with it.

The doctor gave him a sideways look. "One of the ingredients is adder's tongue."

Sharpe gagged and spat the last mouthful out onto the ground.

"But we were short of that as well."

Sharpe stared at her. Doctor Burnett returned his look straight-faced and then smiled. She stood up and came over to take the empty cup from him.

He decided to play along. "I suppose that's put back my recovery," he said ruefully, nodding toward the spreading stain on the paving stone. "I didn't drink it all."

Doctor Burnett sat down beside him on the bench, and regarded him gravely. "Oh, almost certainly." Now it was Sharpe who smiled. The doctor was surprised by the transformation. At first meeting, she had thought him severe, humourless; his features at rest, drawn down by the scar on his cheek, suggesting a world-weary cynicism. But the brief glimpses she had allowed herself of him in the company of his men had revealed a lighter side to his nature.

From her vantage point on the battlements, Helen Burnett had watched a ball game with seemingly few rules being played in the courtyard below, a few days after their arrival at the Castillo. After some noisy but good-natured dispute, the Riflemen had hurled themselves gleefully onto Sharpe's back until he disappeared grinning beneath a tangle of limbs. She had never known an officer so easy with his men. Major Richard Sharpe was certainly very… different.

Sharpe looked about him. This part of the garden was hidden from the castle by thick vegetation; the scents from the surrounding tangle of plants lying heavy on the air. He recognised a clump of lavender growing along the base of the wall to his left, but other than that, the identity of the remaining leaves and flowers was a mystery to him.

Doctor Burnett frowned. The Major seemed pale beneath his tan and was still weak, despite his insistence that he return to duty. "You know a lot about herbs," Sharpe said at last.

Startled by the realisation that Sharpe had caught her staring at him, the Doctor drew back. "My aunt's house has a large garden. My mother died when I was born and I was sent to live with her. The herbs were grown for the kitchen, but I was always more interested in their healing properties." Sharpe nodded, surprised by this sudden revelation of personal history.

"If she had known that my interest in herbal medicine would spark an enthusiasm for medicine proper, I think my aunt would have kept me at my needlework from morning 'til night." The doctor smiled, recalling too that had she known that Helen's interest in medicine would lead to an even greater attraction to her father's protégé, James Burnett, Aunt Elizabeth would doubtless have kept her niece locked in the attic.

"I found almost everything I needed here," she continued. "Basil, chervil, parsley, chamomile, borage, comfrey…"

"Knitbone," Sharpe said, dredging the word from his memory. He wondered if this snippet of information had come from Harris but finally decided that it was more than likely Hagman who had told him of the plant's healing properties. The veteran Rifleman was familiar with both the flora and fauna of the countryside, although it was his poaching of the latter, which had obliged him to enlist in King George's army.

The Doctor smiled at Sharpe's response. "Yes, that's right. I haven't had the opportunity to test the theory since my father favours amputation on the field wherever possible. I understand his reasoning, of course. The flow of blood is much reduced for a man in shock, and the tissue around the wound is numb to a degree, so the limb can be removed with much less pain."

Sharpe winced. Having come within a hair's breadth of the surgeon's bone saw, Doctor Burnett's dispassionate summary of the benefits of lightning amputation was enough to 'put the heart across him' as Sergeant Harper was wont to say.

"My father has great respect for Monsieur Larrey's methods," the Doctor continued. Sharpe eyed her suspiciously. "Who's Monsieur Larrey?"

"Dominique Larrey," she replied. "Napoleon's surgeon. He's making tremendous strides in overcoming post wound and post-operative infection. Battlefield fatalities are much reduced if his procedures are followed. I understand he's introduced some sort of horse-drawn vehicle for the removal of wounded men from the field."

Sharpe grunted, paying scant attention to her words, preoccupied, as he was with pondering whether Doctor Baxter was one of the familiar faces that Nairn had suggested he might run across while searching for the spy. "Your father knows this Monsieur Larrey?" he asked, carefully.

"Well, he knows _of_ him. A good surgeon is always keen to discover new ways to increase a man's chances of survival and he shares his knowledge with others who have the same goal." Doctor Burnett looked over and noted Sharpe's clouded expression. "Man proposes; God disposes. You can't blame my father for trying to influence the outcome." 

The Doctor folded her arms and leant back, surveying the unruly shrubs that spilled onto the path from all sides. "In India, I would have used spices on your wounds. Cardamom, cumin, ginger, turmeric…" 

"You were in India?" Sharpe broke in, surprised.

"Yes, my husband was an army surgeon. Ten years ago I was living in Mysore."

"You must have been very young."

Doctor Burnett turned to regard Sharpe narrowly, surprised at his resorting to flattery when she'd had such high hopes for him, but found the Major's expression one of genuine astonishment.

"I was eighteen, and headstrong," she said with a sigh. Sharpe looked away to hide a smile, but wisely said nothing. "We had been married for two months when James was posted to India," the Doctor went on. "I flatly refused to be left behind in the company of one extremely disapproving aunt, and insisted that he take me with him."

Sharpe had known of several officers whose wives had accompanied them to India. He had seen them on occasion in their carriages on the crowded streets of Mysore; a glimpse of sprigged muslin and a fringed parasol, bringing a little piece of England to what many considered an uncomfortable situation, overwhelmed by a bewilderingly alien culture.

Doctor Burnett appeared to share his thought. "I don't believe our English constitution was designed to withstand the Indian climate. The churchyards there are filled with our dead. Not just from the war," she added, glancing toward Sharpe. "Young children, babies, and their mothers, wasted by the heat and disease." Her voice trailed off.

Sharpe noticed that she still held the leaf and was absently tearing strips from it as she conjured the memory. Eventually, the Doctor straightened, and drew a deep breath, as if steeling herself to continue.

"James had dreams of combining surgery with general medicine in partnership with my father when we returned to England. An unusual approach, of course, but they were certain it would work. They would discuss their plans whenever they could, which wasn't often. My husband spent almost all his off-duty hours tending the sick in the cantonment. He would attend patients who had little hope of survival, those whom no one else would touch. He seemed to think he was immune to disease."

She tore a final strip from the leaf.

"He was wrong."

"I'm sorry."

Doctor Burnett nodded her thanks then stood to brush the leaf fragments from her skirt. She produced a watch from her pocket and exclaimed over the time. "It's later than I thought. I must go." As he seemed interested, the doctor handed the watch to Sharpe. He turned it over in his palm, tracing the delicate engraving on the reverse with his finger. The lightest of touches sprung the lid to reveal a plain white face ringed by Roman numerals.

An officer had once loaned him a watch such as this. Sir Augustus Farthingdale had expressed disdain for Sharpe's leading a rescue mission, but deciding that his wife's safety depended on accurate timekeeping, his Lordship had thrust the watch at him, clearly with the belief that Sharpe would sell it at the earliest opportunity.

"It's all I have left of James now that he's gone," Doctor Burnett said, returning the watch to her pocket. "Not that I had much of him when he was alive." Sharpe made to stand up, but the Doctor kept him in his seat with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Will I see you at dinner tomorrow night, Doctor Burnett?" he asked, looking up at her.

"It's Helen," she replied.

Sharpe nodded slowly. "Will I see you at dinner, Helen?"

"Yes, I rather think you might, Richard."

Helen turned to make her way back through the overgrown garden. Sharpe remained on the bench, watching until she disappeared from view.

The shot had gone wide. Very wide. Sharpe didn't need to see Hagman's wooden expression to know that. One hundred yards distant, a brandy barrel, turned on its side and marked with a crude target remained largely undamaged by Sharpe's rifle practice. He dropped the weapon to his side and cursed under his breath.

"Perhaps if you moved a little closer, sir," Harper offered, then immediately wished he'd kept silent, as Sharpe turned on him with a savage expression. "Any closer, Sergeant Harper, and I could bayonet the bloody thing!" Which if not quite a lie, was a somewhat optimistic assertion.

Sharpe felt as if a ton weight depended from his right arm rather than an eight and a half pound Baker rifle, his partially knit muscles burning from the weapon's forceful recoil. He wiped the sweat from his eyes with his good hand and raised the gun again.

Bending his head to sight along the barrel, Sharpe was distracted by the appearance of a lone figure high up on the Castillo's battlements. Doubtless the impressionable Simpson would have assumed it to be a daylight manifestation of the legendary Dona Elena, but Sharpe knew it to be the very real Helen Burnett. She had referred to the quarters assigned to her in the castle's upper reaches as her 'eyrie' - an escape from the sickness and death in the infirmary far below.

"A fine sight, Richard, wouldn't you say?"

Sharpe jerked out of his trance to find Major Hogan standing beside him, apparently inspecting the castle's soaring stonework. The Engineer turned an innocent gaze on him. "You were admiring the impressive construction of these flying buttresses, of course." Sharpe lowered his gaze to fix on what he hoped was an appropriate example of that architectural feature. "Oh, yes," he replied, nodding unconvincingly.

Hogan now looked between the rifle in Sharpe's hand and the brandy barrel sparsely dotted with bullet holes.  "Just a small word of advice, Richard." Sharpe shrugged off his fatigue and assumed an air of attentiveness. "Yes, sir?"

"You might want to stand a little closer to the target."

Sergeant Harper hid a grin and wisely moved out of range.

Hogan sighed. "I keep telling you, lad. It's 'Michael', not 'sir.'"

"Old habits die hard."

The Engineer smiled and gestured toward the rifle in Sharpe's hand. "Don't push yourself too hard. These things take time."

Sharpe nodded his thanks, his gratitude for Hogan's concern tempered by the hearty slap delivered to his injured shoulder as the Engineer took his leave.   


	7. Chapter Seven

Chapter 7

Colonel Blake's quarters were already crowded and smoky by the time Sharpe joined the company; the candles that burned brightly in wall sconces and in candelabra on the table lending the dining room a festive air at the expense of a breathable atmosphere.

Unsurprisingly, the combined forces of Estella and Josefina were proving a magnetic attraction for every man in the room; Colonel Blake's gaze in particular being drawn to the pearly expanse of Josefina's bosom as if to true North.

Sharpe's hopes of slipping in unseen were immediately scotched by Captain Whiting whose cheery greeting, bawled from across the room, alerted Colonel Blake to his arrival.

"Major Sharpe! Back on your feet again, I see!" the Colonel exclaimed delightedly. "Estella and Josefina were devastated to hear of your injury. Asked after you every day." At the mention of their names, the girls turned their soft eyes on Sharpe and murmured expressions of sympathy in charming broken English.

Whatever the deprivations being suffered by the camp in general, they had clearly stopped short of the Portuguese beauties. Their dresses of embroidered silk were dazzling in the candlelight and Sharpe found himself as captivated as his brother officers by their glowing skin and shining hair. 

He bent over each white hand in turn, thanking them for their concern and assuring them that he was now quite recovered, thanks to Doctor Burnett. Ah, yes, they twittered. The daughter of Doctor Baxter. Such… They hesitated and conferred in whispers before deciding that the word they sought was 'dedication.'  Sharpe smiled and nodded his agreement.

It seemed that being deprived of equestrian pursuits had allowed Estella and Josefina more time to perfect their elaborate coiffures. Both had achieved a complicated arrangement of loops and braids that put Sharpe in mind of the corn dollies seen long ago, hanging above the door of a country tavern; but in his eyes, though artfully done, they could not match the simplicity of Helen's no-nonsense chignon. The Doctor's hair would be quite long, he thought, with perhaps a slight curl, when unpinned.

Captain Whiting interrupted Sharpe's wool-gathering by nudging his elbow with a glass of wine. "Still the same disgusting vintage as before, old man, but get enough of it down your neck and I'm sure you'll find Colonel Blake most entertaining," the Captain offered, with a broad wink in Estella's direction. 

Sharpe accepted the brimming glass while scanning the assembly for any sign of Helen. He turned back to find Major Hewlin paying court to Estella and Josefina in fluent Portuguese; his obviously extravagant compliments causing much fluttering of fans and eyelashes. Hewlin expressed his admiration for their dewy complexions while noting Sharpe's distracted manner with interest.

When everyone was sufficiently fortified with alcohol to withstand the culinary delights in store for them, Colonel Blake led the charge toward the table. Sharpe's own men had provided much of the game on offer this evening. It was unlikely that much in the way of wildlife remained at large after Hagman returned from his hunting trips. 

Sharpe exchanged pleasantries with his fellow diners, but during the lulls in conversation, his gaze drifted toward the door. Once or twice he found himself the target of Hewlin's watchful expression. Irritated by the other's supercilious air, Sharpe fixed his attention on his plate, tackling a portion of roast pheasant with more determination than enthusiasm. 

Hewlin was first to notice Helen's arrival. She was standing by the door, one hand still resting on the latch, looking sombre in a dress of dark blue silk. Instantly, he slid out of his seat and escorted her to the vacant chair beside his own. Colonel Blake tore his gaze from Estella's décolletage and squinted the length of the table. "Doctor Burnett! Coaxed from your tower at last! Major Hewlin, look after the lady, will you?" Hewlin bowed. "With pleasure, Colonel."

Helen glanced at Sharpe and responded politely but distantly to Hewlin's barrage of compliments and enquires as he arranged serving dishes and cutlery and then poured a glass of wine for her. Frowning, Helen reached across the table and moved aside a candelabrum.

"That's better. It's a charming decoration, but more obstacle than ornament. I would sooner talk to my opposite neighbour than the silverware. I trust you are well, Major Sharpe?" Helen asked, a warm smile softening her formal tone.  Sharpe inclined his head and returned her smile. "Yes, thank you, ma'am."

Behind the brightness of the candles, Hewlin's face lay in shadow. Sharpe watched as the Major leant back in his seat to regard him speculatively. Hewlin merely smiled in response to his scrutiny, and raised his glass in salute. "Your very good health, Major Sharpe… Doctor Burnett." 

As the meal progressed, Sharpe noticed that Helen's gaze drifted frequently toward Colonel Blake and his pretty satellites. Josefina in particular was responding to her admirers' relentless flattery with expansive gestures that drew attention to her white arms and dainty hands. The stones in her many rings flashed as she leant across the table to tap Captain Whiting playfully with her fan.

Helen glanced down at her lap. Sharpe assumed she was comparing her own work-roughened hands with Josefina's pale tapering fingers. He longed to offer some reassuring comment, but, as expected, it was Hewlin, far better schooled in the art of small talk, who distracted Helen from her self-critical study. "This is an enchanting piece, and characteristically Indian in design, am I right?"

Hewlin had reached out to touch the delicate silver comb that secured Helen's hair at the nape of her neck. Startled, Helen touched the comb herself, as if only now reminded of it. "It was a gift from my husband."

"Exquisite," Hewlin murmured. Sharpe bristled, convinced that the Major's remark was directed toward Helen herself rather than the ornament. "I recall there being dozens of silversmiths' workshops along the Ashoka Road. James must have been spoilt for choice." Hewlin mused. He turned his gaze on Sharpe. "I daresay you bought a few trinkets yourself, Major Sharpe, during your time in Mysore." He frowned. "Or perhaps not. You were but a humble sergeant back then."

Sharpe was about to inform him that as a 'humble sergeant' he had had precious stones belonging to the Tippoo Sultan sewn into the lining of his uniform, and could have bought up the silversmiths' entire stock had he so wished. But he bit back the retort and wondered instead how Major Hewlin knew so much about his past.  He glanced at Helen and thought she seemed distressed by Hewlin's clumsy familiarity.

Sharpe turned at a sudden flurry of activity from the other end of the table. Estella and Josefina had risen and were insisting that the party continue without them. For his part, Colonel Blake was insisting on bidding them both an extremely fond farewell. Sharpe noted too that Captain Whiting's adieus to Estella were a shade more enthusiastic than was perhaps wise.

Taking her cue from the girls, Helen pushed back her chair and reached for the shawl that lay draped across its back. "Well, I shall leave you two gentlemen to your port and cigars." She smiled thinly at Hewlin, then more generously for Sharpe's benefit. Both men stood.

Sharpe half-expected Helen to offer her hand as Estella and Josefina had done, but she merely pulled her shawl more closely about her shoulders and tucked her hands out of sight.

"May I escort you to your quarters, ma'am?" Sharpe enquired and was irritated to hear Hewlin echoing his offer. Flustered, Helen looked between the two men, but then regained her composure and shook her head. "Thank you, no. I have some matters to attend to in the infirmary. I shall be quite all right, I assure you," she continued firmly, silencing Hewlin's protest. 

Sharpe walked Helen to the door and held it open for her. "You are certain?" Helen smiled at his concern. "Yes, thank you." She looked past him to where Hewlin stood beside the table, watching. Touching a hand to Sharpe's shoulder, she raised her voice a fraction. "Should your injury require further attention, Major Sharpe, you know where to find me."

Sharpe nodded, smiling.

He remained by the door until Helen's dark clothing merged with the slate-blue shadows in the courtyard. Reluctantly, he took his seat at the table, watching as a decanter was passed around, and wondering how soon he could decently make his escape.

Sharpe paused at the top of a flight of stone steps. The corridor to his left ended after ten yards or so in a blank wall, while the way to his right stretched on for more than twice that length, before finally disappearing into darkness. Iron brackets high on the wall contained rush torches that burned brightly, streamers of yellow flame licking at the rough stonework.

He turned to the right and began to walk along the uneven flags, passing from light into dark, the scrape of his boot heels echoing loudly in the silence. Sharpe knew he must be on the topmost floor of the Castillo by now. But where was he to go from here? The corridor seemed to be without doors or windows.

He stopped, certain that he had lost his way. Peering ahead into the gloom he was finally able to make out the dim outline of a spiral staircase which wound upward to yet another floor. As Sharpe moved closer he saw that the lower steps were bathed pale gold. Placing one foot on the bottom step, he leaned in and looked up around the curving stair. A faint glow showed from somewhere above.

Sharpe hesitated, but the light remained steady, neither retreating nor advancing. He began to climb, taking the shallow treads three at a time, and discovered its source; a stub of candle in a brass holder, tucked against the outer edge of the stair. In three strides he found a second candle, then a third.

A sixth and last candle marked the top of the staircase and the beginning of a narrow hallway. Sharpe bent and picked up the candle. The tiny flame was barely enough to lift the darkness, but a sliver of moonlight striking across the floor guided him toward a door that stood ajar at the end of the passage.

The door was made of some dark wood, heavy with elaborate ironmongery. Sharpe pushed it gently and it swung open silently on well-oiled hinges. He remained standing in the hallway, looking into the room beyond. Through a large window, deep-set in a stone embrasure, pale light from a full moon spilled across the faded reds and golds of a Turkey carpet.

The room seemed empty and silent at first, but just as Sharpe was about to step inside, he heard the faint rustle of silk, and saw Helen, heading purposefully toward the window. With head bent and hands clasped beneath her chin, she was pacing back and forth, unaware of his presence.

Sharpe watched as Helen turned abruptly on reaching the window and strode back toward the middle of the room again, her gaze still fixed on the floor. He knew he should speak, cross the threshold, but something held him back.

Helen had arrived at the window again and was standing silhouetted against the night sky. She leant forward, hands outstretched and pressed her palms hard against the glass. Sharpe found he was holding his breath. For a moment, both watcher and watched were still, frozen in time. Sharpe exhaled slowly, quietly, but it was enough to break the spell.

Startled, Helen spun around to face him. Sharpe left the candle on a chair by the door and crossed the room swiftly to take both of her hands in his before she could draw breath. He pressed his lips to the palm of her right hand, finding it chilled from contact with the glass.

"Don't! Please!" Sharpe looked up in surprise as Helen snatched the hand back. Though he had barely brushed the skin, he noticed that she was nursing her clenched fist as if branded by his touch.

"My hands are dirty." Helen said weakly, her fluttering gesture toward the windowsill implying the grime of centuries rather than its actual light film of dust.

Sharpe realized that he had mistaken Helen's brusqueness for impatience, a spark from the firebrand that was Doctor Burnett, but the woman who stood before him now was just Helen; nervous and uncertain. Whatever confidence she possessed when lighting the way to this turret room had deserted her.

Helen swallowed hard and glanced aside as if seeking escape. Sharpe took a step backward as she suddenly gathered up her skirts and rushed across the room toward an ornately carved cabinet that served as a washstand.

For all his faults, Colonel Blake believed strongly that ladies, even those who pursued unsuitable professions, should be provided with 'all the comforts of home' and had consequently ordered the room filled with numerous cumbersome items of furniture, come upon in some forgotten corner of the Castillo.

A large rectangular mirror framed in gold hung on the wall behind the washstand; candles burned in sconces on either side. Sharpe saw Helen glance at his reflection in the glass as she struggled to lift a heavy jug, spilling as much water over the polished surface of the cabinet as into the basin.

Helen snatched up a sliver of soap and began to scrub furiously at her hands, staring into the candle flame and biting her lip. Sharpe remained by the window for a moment longer and then crossed the room silently. Helen tensed, holding herself stiffly as he reached around and closed his hands over hers.

Sharpe felt Helen breathe out hesitantly as he slid his fingers between hers, and began to knead her palm, his thumb describing lazy circles in the thin lather. He glanced up and smiled at Helen's reflection, noticing as he did so that she was following the movement in the mirror with some detachment as if the reflected image of their entwined hands were a thing apart.

"You're laughing at me," Helen whispered, half-turning toward him.

Sharpe shook his head. "No, I'm not."

Helen gasped as bent to trace the curve of her cheek with his lips, and then curl his tongue around her earlobe.

"Richard…"

"Shh…"

Sharpe tugged at the lace collar of her dress with wet fingers and pressed his lips to her neck and shoulder. Helen turned in his embrace. In an instant, Sharpe's mouth fastened on hers, his kiss long and deep.

Helen finally pulled away, flushed and breathless. Sharpe looked down, half-smiling to see her hands bunched into fists, braced against his chest. He waited, his own hands tight around her waist.

They both watched as Helen's fingers uncurled slowly, as if willed by another, to move upward and brush the collar of his shirt. Sharpe felt her place a hesitant finger in the hollow at the base of his throat, her touch so light as to seem merely a warmth. Helen concentrated her attention wholly on tracing the ridge of his collarbone, a small smile curving her lip, as if the rapid pulse under her fingertip was her own private discovery. Sharpe remained still, spellbound by this halting, wordless exploration.

Helen glanced up suddenly and held Sharpe's gaze for a long moment and then wound her arms around his neck, reaching up to kiss him with an intensity that surprised them both. Sharpe tightened his embrace and gently bent her body back as their tongues wove together.

Helen clung to him fiercely, crying out when he broke the kiss to press his lips to her breast, his hands moving down around her body to half-lift her against the cabinet.

Sharpe felt as if he were watching himself from a distance, seeing Helen pushing his jacket from his shoulders; he, struggling to unfasten the rows of tiny buttons on her dress. Surely he didn't mean to… here, now? He raised his head and looked into Helen's eyes, seeing his wild imagining reflected there.

Slowly Sharpe released her, letting slip the fabric of her skirt that he had bunched in his fists. He stepped away, breathing hard, an apology on the tip of his tongue. He shook his head to clear it, his hands dropping to his sides.

Helen watched as he reached behind her to take down one of the candles. Gentle again now, his mouth grazing her cheek, Sharpe looked around the room. Helen nodded toward a curtained doorway.

Sharpe opened his eyes, vaguely aware of having been woken by… something. He came to slowly to find himself lying on his stomach, on a bed in an unfamiliar room.

He felt a warm hand glide along his shoulder and then move down to trace the lattice of scars across his spine, the fingers spreading, lingering, pressing gently, as if to commit the ragged contours to memory. Sharpe smiled, recalling the candles on the staircase, the turret room – and Helen. He relaxed under the soothing touch, only a slight movement, but the hand withdrew instantly.

"I'm sorry. I thought you were asleep," Helen whispered.

Sharpe heard her swallow painfully. The hand returned to the small of his back. "When was this?" she asked. Despite the catch in her voice, Sharpe detected an echo of the Doctor Burnett who had tended him when he was brought to the infirmary after the fight in Benavento; her calm assessment of his injuries an anchor within the haze of his delirium. 

"A long time ago," he replied, gazing unseeing into the shadows, an image forming in his mind's eye of the village square in India where his punishment had been meted out; his flogging the result of a trap set by Sergeant Hakeswill. There was no need to tell Helen how it had felt to reach that plateau of burning pain, and endure it, as blood dripped onto the dusty ground under the relentless lash which laid his flesh open to the bone.

Sharpe turned onto his back. The moon had set hours ago, the dark contours of the furniture looming as deeper shadows in the darkness. Helen leant over him, a moving shadow in the grey light from a window set high in the wall. Fingertips brushed his shoulder. "I'm afraid you will have a scar here." 

"Company for the others," Sharpe replied with a shrug. "Your stitches were very neat," he added in case she thought him ungrateful. 

"Aunt Elizabeth made sure I practiced my needlework every day," Helen said. "Though I can't imagine what she'd say if she saw the use I put it to now." 

Sharpe smiled as Helen settled herself on the pillow beside his head. She brushed a damp strand of hair from his forehead and then bent to kiss him lightly. "I could keep you here, you know. Tell everyone that you'd been spirited away by Dona Elena."  

"You shouldn't listen to O'Dwyer's tales," Sharpe said with mock severity. "The man's a rogue."

"It takes one to know one," Helen said laughing. She began to trace a meandering path across his chest and stomach with a fingertip.

"Doctor Burnett! I'm not fully recovered," Sharpe murmured, capturing her hand. 

Helen trailed the tip of her tongue across his skin in the wake of her finger. "Oh yes you are."

The breath caught in his throat. "I meant from my injury." 

"So did I." Her shadow dipped again and Sharpe relaxed his grip.

Helen's hand drifted lower.

Sharpe woke for a second time to find the room filled with the pale light of dawn. He frowned as a woodland scene in muted blues and greens swam before his eyes before finally resolving itself into a faded tapestry featuring a hunting party; an elegantly dressed gathering on horseback, falcons perched on gloved hands, moving among long-legged hounds, the whole bordered by swags of leaves and berries.

He turned his head and found that Helen's side of the bed was empty, the sheets cool. He sat up and looked around for his uniform. Last night, he recalled with a smile, an impatient Helen, had flung his jacket aside as they stumbled toward the bed, but now the familiar dark green garment was draped across the back of a chair at its foot; his shirt and trousers neatly folded on the seat. A gauze curtain lifted in the slight breeze from an open doorway. Sharpe rolled over and slid out of bed.

Dressed in a light cotton wrap, Helen was standing at the far end of a narrow walkway. Sharpe pulled his shirt over his head, and then leant against the doorframe, watching as she stretched cat-like and caught up her hair in both hands, winding the strands lazily around her fingers.

Sharpe crept up behind her and slid his hands around her waist. Helen smiled as he bent to kiss her. "I thought I'd let you sleep," she said. "I imagine you've seen the sunrise more times than you care to remember."

Her guess was correct. Reveille had often sounded at one o'clock during the summer campaigns in Spain, which made for a very short night's sleep. Helen gestured toward the horizon. "'Red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning.' Isn't that what they say?"

Sharpe followed her gaze to see, not the rosy-fingered dawn of Jackson's memory, but the dull fire of blood orange lying across the eastern sky. Helen shivered, pressing closer. "Summer is over."

Sharpe lifted his head. "You think so?" True, the breeze was cool, but it was still early morning. The temperature was bound to rise later in the day. He looked out at the surrounding countryside, the rolling hills, carpeted with dense forest, in which any number of enemy soldiers might hide.

There would be drills, of course and target practice. The men had to be kept in a state of readiness, but this long period of waiting and watching frayed the nerves of even veteran fighters. Worse still, he was no nearer to discovering the identity of the spy in their ranks. He dropped his gaze to the courtyard far below. Reveille sounded, the thin notes from a bugle swallowed up by the blanketing stonework. Men stirred and stretched, yawning as they stumbled toward cooking fires.

"Richard?"

Sharpe tore his attention from the gradually awakening camp. Helen had turned in his embrace. He kissed her absently. "Sorry. What were you saying?"

Helen sighed. "I said I'd be needing more fuel for the fires in the infirmary. That room can become quite icy for no apparent reason. It's a wonder you and Major Hewlin didn't die from cold."  

"Hewlin was there?" Sharpe said, suddenly alert.

"Yes. He insisted that you shouldn't be separated. He was as keen to keep an eye on you as your Sergeant Harper. I was forever tripping over one or the other of them." Helen replied, smiling at the memory.

Sharpe's gaze drifted back toward the courtyard. "I must go. We'll be leaving in an hour."

Helen nodded. Although he still held her tightly, he was clearly eager to be down there with his men. She could picture him, moving among the men of the 95th, sharing a joke, and accepting a mug of strong black tea from his Sergeant. There would be advice and reassurance for the newer recruits, and grim discussion with the older men who had seen it all before.

Sharpe stared out at the distant mountains. "The French are out there somewhere, and we have to find them." He stepped away from Helen and turned toward the doorway.

"Why?"

Sharpe looked back. "Because the French are the enemy."

He drew the curtain aside.

"War is the enemy," Helen said behind him.

Sharpe paused on the threshold, and then ducked inside. The fabric slid through his fingers and fell back into place.


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter 8

Sharpe clattered down the spiral staircase, his sword scraping the rough-hewn walls as he skidded around the tight bend. He raced along the passageway fastening his jacket hurriedly in an effort to present an orderly face to the world, should he encounter Colonel Blake, or anyone else who might wonder at his being so far from his own quarters.

Captain Whiting emerged from a room at the end of the corridor, rubbing his face and peering blearily at Sharpe. "You're up with the lark, Major," he said, groping for the doorframe to keep his balance. "Damn me, but I don't think I can manage these late nights any more. Dining with the Colonel is a young man's game."

Sharpe heard Estella's voice, muffled with sleep, calling for Whiting to come back inside. "And a young woman's," the Captain added with a grin. Sharpe merely gazed at him blankly and strode on. 

A further three flights of stairs brought him down to the infirmary where a handful of wounded lay in a row before the wide hearth at the end of the room. Sharpe regarded the huddled forms beneath their blankets outlined in the glow of a dying fire, and was reminded of his own good fortune in escaping both the surgeon's saw and an early grave. He stiffened as an icy blast of wind swept through the room. One of the wounded men groaned and shuddered. Somewhere a door slammed shut.

Sharpe experienced a sudden flash of memory; could picture himself lying wrapped in a blanket, there by the window, gritting his teeth against the pain that radiated from his heavily bandaged shoulder. Someone had been talking in his sleep. No, not so much talking as arguing. There had been an urgency to the man's muttering, as if pressing the case for… what exactly? Sharpe stared hard at the flagstones, willing himself to recall the jumble of words that had invaded his fevered brain.

His head jerked up. "Bastard!" He bolted from the room, almost flattening an orderly when they collided in the doorway. Hurtling through the narrow passageways, Sharpe cursed himself for not seeing what had been staring him in the face.

Once outside, it seemed that everyone was bent on obstructing his path. Sharpe shoved men roughly aside without apology. One or two Redcoats turned to remonstrate, but perceiving the Rifleman's rank and implacable expression, they shrugged and rolled their eyes. Just another officer in a hurry.

Moments later, Sharpe found himself in an unfamiliar alleyway beneath the massive walls of the Castillo's inner ward. He swore roundly and then raced back the way he had just come. Unnoticed by Sharpe, a figure hurriedly withdrew into the shadow of a gateway and watched the Rifleman out of sight.  As Sharpe raced past them a second time, the Redcoats sensibly pressed themselves against the wall to allow the grim-faced Major clear passage.

"Harper! Where's Harris?"

Sergeant Harper regarded Sharpe over the rim of a steaming mug of tea. The Major was abrupt at the best of times, but this morning he seemed capable of biting the head off Lord Wellington himself. Harper gestured with the mug toward a low building at the far side of the courtyard, which the Quartermaster had taken as his storeroom.

"Gone to see O'Dwyer for powder and shot."

Sharpe glanced down at Harper's outstretched arm and plucked the mug from his hand, then with muttered thanks he strode off, tossing back the scalding liquid as he scanned the crowd outside O'Dwyer's door. 

"Harris, what does _couloir_ mean?"

Harris, startled at being dragged unceremoniously from his place in line, blinked at Sharpe's urgent tone.

"What? I mean, sorry, sir?"

"_Couloir_. It's a French word. Dammit man, you speak French. What's it mean?" Sharpe snapped. 

"Um… it means 'passageway' …or 'corridor,' sir."

Sharpe grunted and pulled Harris toward a quieter corner. "And _'soldats'_ would be 'soldiers', right?"

Harris nodded slowly. "Yes. What's this about, sir?"

With a sigh Sharpe gestured for him to sit. "Bloody hell, Harris. I don't know if I heard this or if I just think I did." 

"So you're saying there are secret passageways somewhere around here?" Dipping his head, Sergeant Harper blew on a second mug of tea and eyed Harris dubiously.

"Well, if I've translated what Major Sharpe overheard correctly, there would appear to be a network of tunnels beneath the Castillo itself where the French intend to gather and then launch an attack." 

Sergeant Harper turned his sceptical gaze on Sharpe who shrugged, embarrassed. It had all made perfect sense when he'd been standing in the infirmary, recalling the sound of that insistent voice in the dark, but in the cold light of day, the very notion of secret passages seemed ludicrous. "He said it would be easy. _Facile_?" Sharpe offered, turning to Harris for confirmation.

"_Très facile_," Harris amended. 

"Who's 'he'?" Harper asked.

"Hewlin," Sharpe snarled. "Major bloody Hewlin."

Private Poulter breathed deeply in an effort to persuade the tea that he had recently drunk to remain in his stomach and not come hurtling back up his throat, but in vain. He doubled over and retched miserably onto a clump of weeds at the base of the parapet. The tea reappeared, along with the hunks of twice-baked bread that had constituted breakfast. Poulter consoled himself with the thought that he had at least found a quiet corner so there were no witnesses to this embarrassing episode.

He straightened and drew a hand across his mouth, concentrating on the preparations being made in the courtyard. One or two officers had moved away from the men to walk the battlements alone, presumably to mull over some point of military strategy.

He thought it unlikely that anyone would think that he, Poulter, required solitude to consider such weighty matters. In both the encounter with the French on the banks of the Esla and more recently in the village, he had had little time to consider anything other than obeying the orders bawled at him by his commanding officer which were to keep firing his musket until told to do otherwise and try not to get himself killed.

Poulter recognised the officer, who strode the ramparts just below him, as Major Sharpe. He watched as the tall Rifleman put away his telescope and turned from his survey of the surrounding countryside to confer with his sergeant.

The Major now stood, arms folded, scanning the courtyard, his expression dark. Suddenly, he glanced upward, eyes narrowed. Poulter automatically followed the look and turned to study the soaring battlements of the Castillo's topmost reaches. He shaded his eyes against the sun, which rose behind the sand coloured walls, but could see nothing that might have attracted Major Sharpe's attention.

Poulter suddenly felt something thud into his stomach; a sharp, unexpected sensation. He looked down and discovered a face inches from his and a bayonet protruding from his uniform cross-belt. For a moment, both men stared at one another, then, grunting with the effort, the Frenchman tried to jerk the bayonet free, but found it stuck fast. 

Stupefied, Poulter gaped at him. The French weren't supposed to be here in the Castillo. They had disappeared in a puff of smoke. He was sure of it.

Growling, the Frenchman twisted the bayonet and finally wrenched it free. Poulter gasped, staring as his blood spattered the flagstones. His attacker shoved him aside and walked on. Clutching his stomach, Poulter staggered backward and toppled over the parapet.

"Did your man say when the French would attack?"

Sharpe regarded Sergeant Harper narrowly. Had he been persuaded of the idea of subterranean passageways, or was the big Irishman merely humouring him? "I couldn't make it out," he said with a shrug. "It sounded as if he was trying to convince someone else to use the tunnels. He was excited, like he'd discovered something no one else knew about, the cunning bastard. But he was arguing with whoever it was. Maybe they thought it was too difficult. Or they didn't believe him."

Harper's eyebrow crept upward. Sharpe glared at it.

Something flickered at the edge of Sharpe's vision. He swung round.

"What was that?"

A Redcoat lay in a crumpled heap on the ground a few yards distant, the facings on his uniform dark with blood. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" Harper exclaimed behind him. Sharpe looked back to find the Sergeant staring up at the battlements. 

French troops were swarming along the ramparts above, swiftly taking up firing positions. Sharpe swore. It was obvious to him now that it must have been Hewlin who suggested to Colonel Blake that they occupy the Castillo and had fed ghost stories to the Quartermaster, whose embellishments had made the superstitious among them jumpy and disinclined to explore their temporary home.

"Rifles! To me!" Sharpe yelled as the first volley ripped from the battlements wreathing the wall in gunsmoke and shattering the peace. All around him, officers were barking orders, rallying their men, and casting about in desperation for some cover.

"Tirez!" The hoarse shout echoed around the battlements. There was a second spark of flame along the rampart and smoke blossomed from scores of muskets to rain fire on the men below.

Sharpe raced for the shelter of O'Dwyer's storeroom; saw Harper pounding across the courtyard ahead of him. He unslung his rifle as he ran and slammed into the doorway beside the Sergeant. Sharpe raised the weapon to his shoulder, his gaze raking the battlements in search of the French officer who must be directing the attack.

The French were all on foot. That was something to be thankful for. His Riflemen wouldn't be trampled and cut down by the slashing blades of dragoons, though Sharpe missed having an officer on horseback to aim at. Harper, tracking his own target voiced Sharpe's thought. "Even these cunning bastards couldn't make a horse go down into the cellars. Poor beasts have got more sense." 

Sharpe edged cautiously away from the doorframe. Off to his right, Daniel Hagman calmly reloaded his weapon and took aim at a French soldier whose sword glinted in the morning sun. The rifle spat and jerked backward; a wisp of smoke hung in the air, and fifty yards away, the Frenchman gasped as the bullet caught him in the throat. The sword clattered to the ground.

"Nice one, Dan," Sharpe said, though the old poacher was too far away to hear.

The French soldiers now pounded down the stone steps to the courtyard.

"Vite! Vite!" A second Captain, his black moustache curled and waxed, bustled down the stairway, harrying his men to engage the enemy with all speed. The element of surprise had bought them some time, but the English were now forming up and returning fire.

Sharpe sighted his rifle on the French officer, irrationally offended by the man's jet mustachios, and squeezed off a shot. The bullet spun the man around and he staggered, lost his footing and pitched forward. Sharpe gave a satisfied grunt as the Frenchman's body crashed into a knot of infantrymen and sent them hurtling to the bottom of the steps like skittles, a tangle of limbs and muskets.

"Major Sharpe, sir!" Harper hissed urgently, close to his ear. "Over there. More of the buggers!"

The Sergeant jerked his head toward the massive stone gateway at their back. Dozens of the familiar pale blue uniforms were emerging from its dark recesses. Swiftly, Sharpe weighed his options. Keeping low, he ran toward one of the makeshift storerooms that dotted the courtyard. Harper joined him a few moments later. Looking about him, Sharpe could see that the Chosen Men had tucked themselves safely into whatever corners they could find and were patiently picking off Frenchmen, as only a phlegmatic Rifleman knew how.   

"Popping up like blessed rabbits!" Harper exclaimed gleefully, as an enemy soldier poked his head above a weathered parapet, only to find himself face to face with the grinning Irishman. "Reminds me of the shooting gallery at the Lammas Fair, so it does!"

Sharpe offered the ghost of a smile as he reloaded. "Sorry to spoil your fun, Harps, but we can't stay here."

They couldn't hold the Castillo; that was certain. The building's rambling architecture made it impossible to keep the rest of the garrison in sight. Sharpe backed up to a low wall and glanced over his shoulder. A stairway led down into a narrow passageway. He slung his rifle and hooked a leg over the wall, gesturing for the others to follow.

The sound of their boots thudding on stone echoed in the confined space as Sharpe and his men hurried down the steps, the clash of steel and the crack of muskets becoming louder as they neared the gateway that led to the outer ward.

In open ground once more, Sharpe and Hewlin caught sight of each other almost immediately. A flicker of irritation crossed Hewlin's face as he glimpsed the familiar green-jacketed figure from across the courtyard. Sharpe watched as the Major turned to slash at an attacker, his sword blade whistling through the air to bite deep into the neck of a Frenchman who buckled and slid to the ground, blood pumping from an artery. Hewlin stepped over the twitching body and came toward Sharpe through the thick smoke smiling grimly.

"Ah, reinforcements, and not a minute too soon. Major Sharpe! Fighting fit once more I see."

No thanks to you, Sharpe thought. If Harper hadn't been at his side while he lay sick in the infirmary, no doubt Hewlin would have tried to finish what he had begun in Benavento. A knife wound in the back would have gone unnoticed and Sharpe's death attributed to the fever that claimed almost half of those brought back from the field of battle.

Sharpe eyed the Major levelly. "We should head for the East gate. It's furthest from the keep. If we can reach it before the French we can get out and make for the forest."

Hewlin stared at Sharpe in amazement. "I don't believe it! You're running away? So much for the Rifles being the first on the field and the last off it."

"We're not stupid, Major. If we can't hold the Castillo, then it's best to retreat while we can."

Hewlin shook his head sorrowfully. "Never thought I'd hear such thing from you, Major Sharpe. Well, there's nothing else for it, we'll just have to show the greenjackets how it's done, won't we lads?" Hewlin gestured toward the battlements with his sword. "Forward!"

At his command, Hewlin's men rallied and began to move toward the gate through which Sharpe and the Chosen Men had just come.

"Don't be a fool!" Sharpe grabbed Hewlin's arm but the Major shook him off impatiently.  "Turned into a daffodil, have we, Sharpe? Bit yellow after your run-in with grim reaper?" he sneered, a glimmer of amusement sparking in his dark eyes. Sharpe drew back his fist and was about to plant it squarely on the Major's chin when Harper dragged him back. Aware of the scuffle, Hewlin's men were hesitating, eyes darting between the officers.

"Come on, Sharpe! I'll be right behind you!" Hewlin said, smiling.

"That's what worries me."

Hewlin held Sharpe's gaze for a moment then took a step backward. His sword dropped to his side. Sharpe looked around for Harper.

"Get the men to the gate, Sergeant. I'll be along in a bit." Harper nodded and moved off; Hewlin's men, sensing some shift in command obediently following.

Sharpe watched them go, satisfied that Sergeant Harper would lead them to safety, but found that during the few seconds his back was turned, Major Hewlin had disappeared.  

The herb garden behind the infirmary looked much as it had done a few days previously. Breathing hard, Sharpe leant on the half-rotted timber frame of the gateway, which gave onto a gravel path, convinced that Hewlin had come this way. He had managed to keep the Major in sight while sidestepping the dead and dying in the castle's courtyards and passageways, his eyes stung by drifting smoke, his throat parched by gunpowder.

He eyed the narrow path that wound between the tangle of bushes and then crept forward silently, passing the stone bench where he and Helen had sat. Was it only two days ago? It seemed a lifetime. He glanced to left and right. The garden was deserted; the scrape of his boots on gravel the only sound. Perhaps he was mistaken, and Hewlin had evaded him and doubled back.

Ahead of him, a narrow branch, which overhung the path, bounced and swung, its leaves fluttering in the breeze. Sharpe put out his hand to still the movement, looking around at the other trees and shrubs. Realisation dawned. There was no breeze. The garden was sheltered on all sides. Smiling grimly, Sharpe strode toward the door to the infirmary and wrenched it open.   

He found the makeshift sickroom similarly deserted. A table had been overturned and Doctor Baxter's surgical instruments lay scattered across the floor, evidence of the remaining patients' hurried exit. A tattered blanket smouldered on the hearth. Sharpe crossed the room and pulled it clear of the glowing embers. As he stood holding the scrap of woollen cloth, he saw that the door at the far end of the room stood ajar. He recalled that the room beyond, hardly more than a cupboard really, was where Helen kept spare blankets and their few medical supplies.

The storeroom was exactly as he'd thought it would be; blankets, poor though they were, folded and piled neatly in a corner; bundles of herbs tied with string and hung from hooks in the ceiling. A mortar and pestle lay on a slatted wooden shelf. Helen's mark was on everything.

Helen. Where was she now? Still in the turret room, or had she been in the infirmary when the French troops burst in? Sharpe forced his mind away from such thoughts, and turned his attention to a second door, which stood wide. Stone steps led down into darkness. Sharpe drew his sword and, pressing close to the doorframe, slowly descended the stairs. The rough stone wall snagged at his jacket while the chill of the grave and the scent of old wine rose up around him.

The cloying odour of fermented grapes grew stronger as he reached the bottom step and found himself in an enormous vault. An arched ceiling stretched away into deep shadow, supported by massive pillars that seemed rooted in the rock on which the Castillo stood. A dozen gigantic barrels stood testament to the cellar's original purpose, though the wine itself had almost certainly been consumed long ago.

A huge lantern hung from the ceiling, casting a soft yellow glow on the uneven flags beneath, the tiny candle flame dwarfed by the panes of glass that contained it.

Hewlin was standing within the cordon of light, sword in hand. He drew back as Sharpe approached. They circled each other slowly. Sharpe hefted his sword, feeling the muscles in his shoulder protest. Hewlin watched closely. He could afford to bide his time, but Sharpe would want to move in hard and fast, before his strength gave out.

Sharpe was the first to break, the heavy cavalry sword scything the air. Hewlin parried the blow easily and struck back. He was light on his feet and a practiced swordsman. Sharpe could picture him in one of the fencing clubs in London, honing his skills against others of his ilk; gentlemen for whom fighting was merely a diversion, sport, with drinks all round afterward and no hard feelings.

Sharpe had never fought for sport, only ever for his life, and always to kill.

Sharpe withdrew, cuffing sweat from his forehead with his left hand. The air in the cellar was heavy, stifling. His arm ached like the devil and was already seizing up. By contrast, Hewlin seemed fresh as a daisy, bouncing on the balls of his feet, eager to counter Sharpe's next move.

The blades clashed again and again, each blow jarring Sharpe's shoulder until his damaged muscles burned with the exertion. He struck again, a hay-raking slice that connected with a pillar, striking sparks from the ancient stone. Hewlin saw his chance to disarm Sharpe, chopping down decisively, aiming for the Rifleman's forearm, but Sharpe recovered, slashing upward to rip Hewlin's sword from his hand. The blade spun away into the darkness and clattered unseen to the floor. Swiftly, Hewlin ducked behind a pillar.

Sharpe lowered his weapon momentarily, wincing in pain. He breathed slowly, carefully, listening for any sound from the other man, and then raised his sword again and moved around behind the pillar.

In an instant, a circle of cold steel was pressed to his neck. He heard the unmistakable click of a pistol's hammer being drawn back, and felt Hewlin's breath close to his ear.

"You mistook me for a gentleman, Major Sharpe."

"I knew you for a bastard," Sharpe hissed through gritted teeth.

He looked back over his shoulder. The stairway was hidden from view by the forest of pillars, but doubtless he could find his way back, eventually. Hewlin guessed his thoughts. "The Castillo is overrun, Major. Unless you intend surrendering your sword and sitting out the rest of the war in Paris, you'd do better to throw in your lot with me."

Sharpe eyed Hewlin balefully. "It'd come to the same thing, wouldn't it?"

"Good Lord, no. Show your face upstairs and you run the risk of being shot on sight, officer or no. I, on the other hand, will take the utmost care of you."

"Take care of me?" Sharpe said. "You tried to kill me in the village, remember?"

"On the contrary, Sharpe, I was ordered to save you, once my superiors realised that Wellington had set you to catch me. Apparently they regard you as much too valuable to end your days bleeding in a Spanish gutter."

"Why the pistol, then? Thought you said you weren't to kill me."

"Nothing was said about inflicting injury," Hewlin replied, grinning.

He lowered the pistol. "In any case, you could never hope to evade capture among hundreds of Frenchmen. However, I am just one man, and I believe you to be very resourceful," Hewlin went on, the apparent compliment revoked by a mocking smile. 

"So we're to stay down here with the rats?"

Hewlin gave an exasperated sigh. "Of course not. We shall leave in the same way that the French came in." He reached behind one of the larger barrels to retrieve a coil of rope without hesitation, as if he expected it to be there, Sharpe noted.

"We're about to embark on a perilous journey, Major. It wouldn't do to become separated," Hewlin continued, flicking Sharpe an amused glance. "You must see the sense of it, Major. I know of a way out for us. You, on the other hand, do not." He paid out the rope to a serviceable length and tied it around his waist, offering the other end to Sharpe, who, after a moment's hesitation, snatched it up and followed suit. 

Jerking the knot tight, Sharpe considered the degree of planning required to reach this moment. He fumed silently, angry with himself for being so easily duped. Hewlin had played him like a fish on a line from the first.

Hewlin tucked the pistol out of sight once more, apparently confident that the Rifleman had resigned himself to capture, and no longer needed to be watched. Sharpe watched as Hewlin produced a candle from his coat pocket and lit it from the rush torch on the wall behind his head. "Shall we?" He gestured toward an opening in the rock wall, low to the ground.

Sharpe eyed Hewlin and the tunnel entrance with equal suspicion, thinking that he would sooner throw himself down a well as scramble through this hole in the wall. Without waiting for a reply, Hewlin flashed a smile and ducked into the narrow opening, to disappear immediately, swallowed up by the blackness within.

Sharpe watched as the rope that joined them together straightened and pulled taut in response to Hewlin's moving further away.  Briefly he entertained the idea of untying the rope to allow Hewlin to scuttle off by himself. He went so far as to look for a suitably heavy object around which to secure the rope. If Hewlin could be fooled into thinking that he was belatedly resisting arrest, it might buy him a few moments, but where would he go?

As Hewlin had correctly pointed out, he possessed the details of the tunnel system safely locked in his head. In these circumstances, like it or not, Sharpe's fate was bound to that of the English turncoat.

The rope twitched impatiently. Sharpe eyed it with distaste, then strode toward the opening and lunged through it, burned by the ignominy of being called to heel like a dog.


	9. Chapter Nine

Chapter 9

The rock face was pitted, its surface powdery in places, slick in others. Sharpe felt as if his body had been bent into this awkward half-crouch for hours. It could have been hours for all he knew. His back ached and his thigh muscles protested as he shuffled along.

He was following Hewlin through a tunnel, never more than five feet high, that wound to left and right, rising and falling without warning. For most of their route, the walls of the narrow passageway just grazed his shoulders, but in some places, he had been forced to twist sideways and squeeze past outcrops of rock that seemed set on crushing the life out of him. Once or twice, he had stretched out a hand and found empty air, an unexpected absence that had him struggling to keep his balance.

Throughout the journey, Hewlin had offered neither advice nor caution, opting instead for a relentlessly cheerful commentary, prattling happily about the weather, his family and the wonders of Paris with the ease of a man strolling in open countryside.

"Are you good at your job, Major?" Hewlin asked suddenly. They had stopped to rest after a particularly steep and cramped ascent. Sharpe rubbed his bruised elbow and glanced at Hewlin, noting that the shadow cast by the candle flame lent the other's features an appropriately diabolic appearance.

"I survive," he replied sourly.

"Oh, lots of men survive, dear boy, but I suspect, more by luck than judgment," Hewlin said with a smile.  "You seem always to emerge unscathed from even the trickiest of situations, and that's a talent in itself. Perhaps that's why I was ordered to bring you in alive, your methods to be studied by our tacticians."

Sharpe looked away. Hewlin obviously hoped he would be intrigued and beg for details. He would not give him the satisfaction. Hewlin eyed the scowling Rifleman for a moment longer and then shrugged. "Or it could be they just wanted you removed from the field."

Hewlin waited expectantly, but since Sharpe continued to ignore him, he leant back against the wall with a sigh. "In my line of work, you're only as good as your last piece of intelligence. You don't know how lucky you are. No one asks you how many Frenchmen you've killed. Likely your Colonel Blake sees you hobbling back into camp and thinks "Damn that Major Sharpe, still in one piece. Now he's owed another day's pay!"

Struck by a thought, Hewlin brightened.  "Perhaps you should just count coup, as do the warriors of the Rappahannock."

"Who're they when they're at home?" Sharpe asked, and then silently cursed himself for having betrayed an interest in Hewlin's nonsense.

"The indigenous people of Virginia, in your erstwhile colonies, "Hewlin replied. "For them, there is no honour in killing a member of a rival tribe at long range, or winning by overwhelming numbers. Honour is achieved by the solitary warrior in a headlong battle charge, which ends in the harmless touching of an enemy. I imagine the Rappahannock would consider the European custom of wholesale slaughter to be somewhat extravagant. After all, how will your people survive a hard winter if there are no young men left to hunt game?" Hewlin paused before adding reflectively "But perhaps they lack Napoleon's ambition."

"Did you spy for the rebels as well?" Sharpe asked, his curiosity piqued.

Hewlin scowled, seeming affronted by Sharpe's describing his activities in such bald terms. "Men will always require certain… information. I merely provide it."

"For a price."

Hewlin shrugged. "I could just as well ask why you chose soldiering over some worthwhile occupation, Major Sharpe. Don't tell me you fight only because King George commands? Or maybe you do it for the money?" He got to his feet and leaned in, hands on knees, to study Sharpe as a benevolent uncle might regard a perplexing nephew. "Or perhaps," he continued, "it's the only thing you're fit for."

Sharpe snarled and swung at him, but Hewlin sidestepped neatly in a whirl of coattails. Laughing, he continued along the passageway without a backward glance, leaving Sharpe with little choice but to follow.

The height of the tunnel increased from this point, but narrowed considerably; the relief from bending almost double offset by the crab-like shuffle required to move along its length. Sharpe winced as he scraped between jagged rocks, grazing his cheek. His knuckles were raw and fingernails ragged from grappling with unyielding stone. Beside the physical discomfort, Sharpe also had the nagging doubt that Hewlin had lied about the difficulty of his finding a way through the tunnel system unaided, since thus far, their route had been punishing and yet uncomplicated.

At which point, the tunnel forked.

Sharpe watched as Hewlin peered first into one gloomy recess and then the other. Completely absorbed in his task, he stood, arms outstretched, breathing deeply, a slight smile on his face, as a man might pause to admire the rolling acres of his estate from the threshold of an ancestral home. Suddenly, Hewlin snapped his fingers and gestured toward the right hand tunnel. "This way, Major."

Sharpe followed, scanning the stone arch as he passed beneath it, in the hope of discovering some distinguishing feature that had led Hewlin to choose this path, but saw nothing.

For the next few hundred yards, the tunnel divided with dizzying frequency. In vain, Sharpe tried to form some mental map of their route, but the stale air sapped his concentration as well as his physical strength. The tunnel eventually widened to form a small grotto, its centre filled with a cluster of stone spikes that looked to Sharpe like crude bayonets.

"I shall be eternally grateful to the dear boy who revealed the wonders of this fascinating cave system to me. He was so knowledgeable and enthusiastic. Knew the place like the back of his hand. Of course, he thought he was working for one of your exploring officers."

Sharpe, stumbling behind Hewlin in semi-darkness was suddenly alert. The penny dropped. "Felipe," he said.

Hewlin nodded absently. "We spent hours down here exploring every nook and cranny."

"And then you killed him," Sharpe spat.

Hewlin shrugged. "Needs must."

In three strides Sharpe caught up with Hewlin, spun him around and slammed him against the wall. "I ought to kill you right now," he hissed, his hands tight around Hewlin's throat.

Although fighting for breath, Hewlin still managed to eye Sharpe with contempt. "I don't think you will, Major. Look around you."  

Sharpe held Hewlin's gaze for a long moment. "I'll kill you later, then." 

Hewlin swallowed hard, struggling to retain his dignity. Finally, Sharpe released him and stepped away. Hewlin coughed and made a show of straightening his collar before striding off into the darkness.

"He volunteered." Hewlin tossed the remark carelessly over his shoulder. "His was just one of many offers of help. The villagers were eager to divulge the secret of Benavento to a British officer. 'Anything for the Lord Wellington,' they said. Quite touching, really."

With a yell, Sharpe threw himself at Hewlin's back, knocking him to the ground. The candle flew through the air, bounced off the wall and rolled away, still burning. Sharpe grabbed Hewlin's shirtfront with his left hand and cracked him across the jaw with his right, spitting curses. "You had the whole bloody lot killed!"

Hewlin struggled to land a punch of his own, but Sharpe caught his wrist and smacked it hard against the wall. Hewlin gasped and wrenched his hand free, kneeing Sharpe in the stomach as he did so.

Winded, Sharpe released his hold and Hewlin scuttled backward out of reach.

Sharpe struggled to his feet. Hewlin was standing a few feet away; the clump of protruding rocks now a barrier between them. He touched his jaw gingerly, regarding Sharpe pityingly. "You weren't listening to me, Major. I told you, I merely provide my masters with information. How that information is acted upon is not my concern."

Furious, Sharpe charged again. Hewlin stepped back in alarm – and vanished.

Instantly, the rope around Sharpe's waist pulled taut and he found himself being dragged across the rough ground and crushed against the stone barricade.

Breathless and sweating, Sharpe twisted his body to ease the pressure on his chest. Peering between the stone spikes, he could see the rope, stretching away from him to disappear into a fissure about two feet wide. The rope twitched and creaked. Sharpe called out to Hewlin and heard muted scuffling and cursing. The bastard was still alive then.

Sharpe squeezed a hand through a narrow gap between two of the stone columns, straining to grasp the rope. Grunting with the effort, he stretched further, his cheek pressed hard against the rock, but the rope remained tantalisingly out of reach. He withdrew briefly, steeling himself for another attempt.

"Hold still!" Sharpe yelled, seeing the rope begin to roll back and forth on the edge of the fissure. He swore at the unyielding stone barbs and tried again. His fingers closed on the rope. Triumphantly, he thrust his other arm through the gap and grasped it with both hands and began to pull.

After what seemed an eternity, a hand appeared, clawing at the air. Sharpe heaved on the rope once more and was rewarded by the sight of a dishevelled Hewlin, lurching forward and collapsing in a heap like Jonah regurgitated by the whale.

Sharpe hauled himself up, clutching at the spear-like rocks, utterly exhausted. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, and regarded Hewlin impassively.

Hewlin offered a weak smile. "That was an act of…"

"Self-preservation," Sharpe cut in.

"I was going to say 'folly'," Hewlin said with a trace of his former ebullience. "As I'd already surmised, Major Sharpe, you are a born survivor." 

Sharpe continued to regard him balefully. "Get moving." Hewlin stared at him in surprise, and then staggered to his feet, scrabbling feebly at the wall behind him for support. Pressing a hand against his ribs he drew a careful breath.

"What's the matter?"

Hewlin straightened and waved away Sharpe's gruff enquiry. "It's nothing. I am quite well." He dug in his pocket and produced another candle, then crossed to retrieve the one that still flickered in a corner.

Lighting one candle from the other, Hewlin moved toward a low archway, glancing at Sharpe nervously as he brushed passed. Sharpe regarded his retreating back, noting that Hewlin limped a little. He also seemed short of breath. Good. Perhaps they would complete their journey in silence.    

Sharpe staggered through the narrow opening, gasping for breath. He straightened gingerly, discovering with relief that he could at last stand upright after being bent double for so long.

He watched as Hewlin picked his way across the sloping floor, holding the candle aloft, the better to examine a trio of tunnel entrances that opened onto blackness. The tiny flame illuminated a large circular cavern, the walls of which seemed to advance and retreat before Sharpe's eyes, just as their twin shadows rose and fell, forming grotesque shapes while Hewlin made his careful exploration.

Sharpe stared up at the clusters of stalactites; bizarre, petrified icicles, which hung from the curiously domed ceiling. He dropped his gaze to the dense forest of stalagmites that rose from the floor to meet them.

He moved further into the cavern, attracted by an immense overhang of rock off to his right, approaching the massive formation hesitantly. Ducking beneath it, Sharpe found himself in a smaller chamber, the walls of which glittered faintly like so many tiny diamonds. He moved closer to inspect what he thought at first to be a black pit, some twenty feet across, surrounded by a rough stone ledge.

The candlelight behind him grew brighter as Hewlin appeared beside him and leaned in to touch what Sharpe now recognised as a body of water. Both men stared at the myriad pinpoints of light, which danced across the skin of the water until the ripples died away and the pool regained its glassy immobility. Sharpe finally overcame the hypnotic effect and turned away.

"How do you suppose you would die, if you were to fall in?" Hewlin asked casually, as if enquiring about the likelihood of rain.

"Drown," Sharpe replied flatly.

"And there you'd be wrong, my friend." Hewlin wagged a sententious finger, his eyes still fixed on the black expanse. "You would, in fact, freeze to death before ever you drowned. The water is ice cold, d'you see? Even a strong swimmer would succumb in perhaps a quarter of an hour." Sharpe glanced at Hewlin, noting that the man seemed to have a worryingly feverish look about him.

"They say it can be quite a peaceful way to go, if you don't fight against it and just let it happen," Hewlin continued without expression. "It's only painful if you struggle."

Sharpe spared the dark water a cursory glance, silently disagreeing with Hewlin's morbid opinion, certain that he, Richard Sharpe, would fight Death for possession of his body every step of the way. But even from a distance, the pool still exerted a strange attraction, dragging his attention back toward its treacherous depths, ensnaring him again by reviving a memory of the carnage at Oporto.

Some years ago, Sharpe had watched helplessly as a bridge spanning the Douro collapsed under the weight of the hundreds of refugees fleeing the city. Dozens of men, women and children had fallen to their deaths. Every one of them had fought against their fate, Sharpe was sure, even as saturated clothing and failing strength had dragged them beneath the tumbling rush of water.

A sudden tug on the rope around his waist jerked Sharpe out of his trance and almost off his feet. He turned to protest and found Hewlin crumpled in a heap some distance away. Sharpe strode across, intending to haul him to his feet, but Hewlin shook his head, batting feebly at the helping hand.

"I'm sorry, old chap, but I just have to rest for a moment."

Sharpe eyed Hewlin suspiciously, but the laboured breathing and awkward movement seemed genuine enough. He watched as Hewlin tilted the candle clumsily to drip wax onto a large rock that overhung the pool.

Hewlin twisted the candle stub into the cooling puddle. "There," he sighed, settling back to gaze at the cavern's gently curving ceiling. "We may as well use the last of our light, if only to appreciate the savage beauty of what is to become our tomb."

Sharpe's head jerked up. "What!"

Hewlin propped himself up with one hand and pressed the other tightly to his ribs as he leaned earnestly toward Sharpe.

"I do believe I broke a rib when I fell back there. I can feel something piercing me just here," Hewlin said with a wan smile, his fingertips brushing the gold braid on his coat. "Were it not for this cursed shortness of breath, I'm certain we would have made faster progress."

Sharpe eyed him without expression. It would be just like Hewlin to pretend an injury.

"As it is, when this candle burns out, that's it, I'm afraid. We'll likely die of starvation. Or cold," Hewlin went on, shrugging apologetically.

Sharpe looked away, disgusted by this passive and probably false acceptance of their fate. The temptation to cut himself loose and try to find his own way out was very strong, but common sense prevailed. He sank down as far from Hewlin as possible, folded his arms across his knees and glared at the rope that snaked across the rough ground, tethering him to this Job's comforter.

Hewlin's musing continued. "I was told that anyone caught here during the spring thaw would be dashed to pieces against these walls. Apparently, a torrent of melt water comes crashing through the passageways in a matter of minutes and turns this chamber into a veritable Charybdis." He broke off to glance at Sharpe. "That's a whirlpool to you, old chap."

"I know what it is."

Hewlin's eyes widened in surprise. "Really? I must say, I never had you pegged as a man who'd read Classics."

"I didn't, "Sharpe grunted. "But I know a man who did."

"Ah, yes. Rifleman Harris." Hewlin nodded slowly, wincing as he shifted his position. "You believed him to be the rotten apple for a time, didn't you, Sharpe? Go on, admit it." He smiled to see Sharpe's jaw clench and his hand curl into a fist.

Abruptly Hewlin lost interest in baiting Sharpe and returned to his contemplation of the cavern's architecture. "Then again, a damn good thunderstorm would have the same effect. That's how this chamber gained its singular form, you know. Centuries of flash floods, all occurring unseen, hundreds of feet below ground. Awe inspiring, isn't it?" he finished, tilting his head back further       

Sharpe ignored him, focusing his attention instead on the discovery of possible escape routes. These shadowy recesses might harbour any number of passageways to the surface, or any number of dead ends. Though he had watched Hewlin's every move as he navigated the bewildering network of tunnels, Sharpe was no closer to discovering the man's method for doing so.

"Then again, we might be rescued by my men."

"Or mine," Sharpe countered.

"Or both. Let them decide among themselves who is prisoner of the other." Hewlin's feeble chuckle disintegrated into a fit of coughing.

Sharpe found it impossible to judge Hewlin's colouring in such poor light, but the sheen of perspiration on his forehead suggested an accompanying pallor.

Hewlin exhaled carefully. "Renouf will find us. He has a nose like a bloodhound."

Sharpe looked over. "So you answer to Renouf." Bonaparte's 'new favourite' as Wellington had called him.

"Oh, yes. I answer to Renouf, and he answers to Ducos, and Ducos…"

"Ducos answers to Bonaparte," Sharpe finished for him.

Hewlin smiled at Sharpe's naivety. "Pierre Ducos answers to no one, whatever the Emperor might think."

So the order had come from Ducos. Sharpe nodded. That made sense. He had rid himself of one enemy in Hakeswill, only to gain another, more dangerous one, in Ducos.

Sharpe had become entranced by the candle flame, its flickering light now the centre of their world; a tiny sun keeping the darkness at bay.

"I don't suppose you've met Napoleon, have you, Major?" he heard Hewlin ask.

"No."

"Probably just as well. You'd be disappointed. He is only a man, after all. And a short one at that."

Sharpe dragged his attention away from the faint glow to stare at Hewlin. "What!" Napoleon Bonaparte had turned half of Europe on its head and meant to rule over everyone from here to God knew where. He'd raised an army thousands strong to run them all into the ground, and Hewlin insisted he was 'only a man?'

"His goals are tangible, and he may yet be outmanoeuvred by your Lord Wellington," Hewlin said. "Ducos' ambition, on the other hand, is occult. Hidden," he added, in case Sharpe misunderstood. "And that makes him far more dangerous."

The candle sputtered and burned low, then recovered itself. Sharpe and Hewlin regarded it intently, as if their combined concentration could prevent the inevitable. Even so, both were disappointed. The flame sank, then winked out, plunging them into utter blackness.


	10. Chapter Ten

Chapter 10

Fat drops of rain battered a clump of ferns at the base of a pine tree. Sergeant Harper regarded the quivering greenery for a moment and then turned to look out at the thunderheads which menaced the hilltops. The change in the weather, promised for weeks, had finally resulted in a deluge; the rain gusting in sheets across the open ground that separated the wooded hillside from the fortress.

Harper leaned against the tree trunk to reload his rifle, humming snatches of _Ladies of Spain_ under his breath. The men of the 95th had provided covering fire for their comrades, but the French had pursued them for only a short time and without enthusiasm, most of them returning to safety within the castle walls.

"No sign of Major Sharpe, then?" Harris asked, as he took shelter beside the Sergeant. The dense foliage shielded them from the worst of the weather; nevertheless, Harris took care to protect his rifle and ammunition from any drizzle that might slip through the dark canopy.

"Not yet, no."

Both men peered beneath a low-hanging branch to where the Castillo rose in the distance, its yellow-gold walls seeming to glow in the eerie sulphurous light.

"He went after Major Hewlin, didn't he?"

Harper nodded. "That he did. He'll be all right, though. Major Sharpe has the luck of the Irish."

"But he isn't Irish," Harris said mildly.

"I've lent him mine for the duration. Not that he needs it," Harper said lightly. Harris wasn't fooled by the Sergeant's tone. Major Sharpe might have a cat's nine lives, but Major Hewlin was crafty and ruthless. Harper turned his face to the bivouac fire that burned fitfully a few feet away and stared into the flames.

Dobbs emerged from the unseasonable gloom, one hand on the shoulder of a small boy. He halted before Sergeant Harper, rain dripping from his shako and prodded the child into taking a reluctant step forward.

"What's this then, Dobbs? Are we taking in waifs and strays?" Harper winked at the boy, who drew back, large-eyed.

"Flushed 'im out when we made camp, sir, "Dobbs offered, adding pointedly in a lower tone, " Says 'e's from the village." 

"Is that right?" Harper beckoned to the boy. "Come here, son. I don't think you should be running about in the dark on your own, do you?"

Struggling to control a quivering lower lip, the boy shook his head and stared at the ground. Finally he looked up and met Harper's gaze, and following another ungentle prod from Dobbs, suffered himself to be seated beside the fire.    

Sharpe stared straight ahead, angered by the flutter of anxiety that rose in his throat, that primitive fear of the dark. He put a hand to his eyes, feeling his pupils expanding achingly to their limits in a vain attempt to perceive even the faintest glimmer of light.

Hewlin chuckled. "Painful, isn't it? Enough to make your eyes pop clean out of their sockets. No chance of natural light reaching us down here, old man. Never has been."

Sharpe closed his eyes and leant back against the rock wall and allowed the silence to stretch between them. While the candle lived, minutes could be counted off as the wax pooled around its base, but without it, time had become elastic, seconds expanding into hours, hours into days.

Sharpe started at an insistent tug on the rope around his waist. "What?" he growled, turning toward the spot where he remembered Hewlin to be.

"Oh, nothing," Hewlin's voice floated back. "Just making sure you were still there."

For one moment, Sharpe imagined that Hewlin's voice was coming from a different part of the cavern, but then dismissed it as being a peculiarity of the chamber's construction.  "Where else would I be?"

"Where indeed?" Hewlin's breath caught in his throat.

The blanketing silence descended once more. Sharpe's head drooped onto his chest, the stale air in the cavern dragging him toward unconsciousness.

"I suppose you've always thought you'd die in battle, eh, Sharpe? Never pictured yourself gasping your last at home, in bed, surrounded by grandchildren?"

Hewlin paused expectantly, but as Sharpe said nothing, he continued, his voice cracking. "No, of course you didn't. Soldiers never think of it at all, do they? That would only tempt Fate. It's a good thing you got all your heroics out of the way early on."

Hewlin gave a satisfied grunt as if his comment had goaded Sharpe into responding. "Oh yes, I heard all about your taking an eagle at Talavera, though I doubt Lord Wellington was first with his congratulations. He's always said there's no room in his army for gallant officers. But then you're not really an officer, are you, Sharpe? You'll always be a common soldier at heart, in spite of the red sash and that brutish cavalry sword."

Sharpe jerked awake, the sudden movement dispelling a confusion of images that swam behind his eyelids. He breathed slowly, taking a perverse pleasure in keeping silent, and allowed Hewlin's barbs to fall into empty space. He heard the sound of boot heels scrabbling against rock. Hewlin was trying to make himself more comfortable with no small effort. A painfully indrawn breath hissed in the darkness.

"Personally, I never imagined that I would make old bones," Hewlin rasped. "Unlike my brother whom I fully expect to depart this life at a ripe old age _in_ _flagrante delicto_ with a comely kitchen maid. If ever a man was determined to die in the saddle, it's good old Robert. I always fancied I would die on the gallows," he finished, sounding wistful.

Sharpe noted that Hewlin had given his brother's name its French pronunciation, all pretence at Englishness now abandoned. He flinched as Hewlin suddenly smacked the ground with the flat of his hand.

"Dammit Sharpe! You shouldn't have to spend your last hours with a miserable old pessimist like me for company. You should be out there on a battlefield, gutting a Frenchman, or being gutted yourself. Death or glory!"

Sharpe leant forward, pinching the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. He felt thick headed, as if he'd been trapped for hours in some lonely tavern and forced to listen to a maundering drunkard.

"Thought you had me dying at home, in bed," he muttered.

Hewlin continued as if Sharpe had not spoken. "But on the other hand, it's _being_ a miserable old pessimist that's kept me alive in this dangerous game. And believe me, it's every bit as dangerous as bayoneting a… frog." Hewlin enunciated this last carefully. The word hung in the air. Sharpe said nothing.

Hewlin sighed, and then resumed his explanation. "The trick is to place a grain of truth inside each lie. Acts as an anchor. Something to come back to." He let out a careful breath. "Even so, I expected to be discovered every minute of every day. Discovered and disgraced. The General examining the papers I'd brought him for just that moment too long. A fellow officer looking right into me, as if he could see the real man behind the mask."

"Jackson saw through you, didn't he?" Sharpe demanded. "That's why you killed him. What was it gave you away?"

"Oh, it was a trifle. Such a little thing," Hewlin replied, absently. "It's always the little things." He let out a careful breath. "I intended to kill him outright, you know. I didn't mean for him to linger the way he did."

Coming from anyone else, the comment might have suggested a degree of compassion, but Sharpe knew that Hewlin's concern was only for himself. A Jackson who survived to identify his attacker would have been a danger. The Major must have sweated until the wounded man drew his last breath.

Sharpe heard Hewlin's boot scuff the floor again, then the faint click of metal on stone. He tensed instinctively. Was Hewlin armed after all? He waited, expecting – what? To be attacked by a wounded man when neither of them could see a hand in front of their face? He sank back again.

After some time, Hewlin broke the silence. "You fight well."

"I fight dirty," Sharpe muttered.

"And you would be missed, I think."

Sharpe gave a derisive snort. Hewlin must be delirious. Who would mark his passing? His daughter? She was too young to remember him. What would Teresa's relatives have told her about her father? What could they tell her?

Patrick Harper, then. He'd drink to his memory. Sharpe nodded, satisfied by the notion of the Chosen Men 'waking' him, in some Spanish tavern. Felicia's home brew would fit the bill. One jugful of that and they'd all be passed out in the gutter. He smiled at the thought. The real world seemed very far away and insignificant.

Hewlin let out a long shuddering gasp.

Sharpe felt his muscles beginning to stiffen as the chill from the stone at his back seeped into his body. He stirred at another disturbance from Hewlin's direction, struggling to identify the sound, frustrated by a brain that had become similarly dulled by cold. He was certain that there was a good reason for not remaining in this cavern, but he was damned if he could remember what it was.

He leant back and closed his eyes, fully expecting Hewlin to continue his irritating monologue, but the wretch had fallen obstinately silent. Sharpe cursed his contradictory need for the sound of a human voice, even Hewlin's, hearing only the rhythmic dripping of water from somewhere in the darkness.

One… two… three… four drops, then a pause, then three drops. Another pause. Four drops, pause, three drops, pause. Over and over again. It was enough to drive a man insane. What _was_ it?

Ah, he remembered now. There was an immense column of rock suspended from the roof of the cavern, its surface slick with moisture. Water was dripping from its tip onto an answering stone pedestal. The plinth's bowl-like depression had reminded him of a birdbath.

The image of that marble garden ornament on its cushion of bright green lawn shimmered tantalizingly behind his eyelids. Sharpe could almost believe himself back in Oporto, standing by French windows that looked out onto a formal garden. He had been ordered to escort a wine merchant's wife and daughter to safety before the city fell to the French. It had seemed a straightforward task, but unfortunately, the daughter had had other ideas about where her future lay.

Opening his eyes again to this oppressive blackness was to slam into an invisible wall. Sharpe gasped, painfully alert again.

"Hewlin?"

No answer.

He waited. Perhaps Hewlin was asleep. Or unconscious.

"Hewlin!"

Sharpe struggled to his knees, ignoring the protests from stiffening muscles. His hand brushed against a rent in his trousers. He traced the line of ragged cloth and found blood oozing from a sword cut to his thigh; so numbed by cold, he hadn't even been aware of the injury.

Tentatively, he reached out and began to crawl across the floor, his hands grazing the uneven surface. He winced as his fingers closed around some jagged fragment – bone, perhaps? – swore when he collided painfully with a stalagmite.

He had almost forgotten about the rope until his wrist brushed against its rough strands. He grasped it gratefully, and then sat back on his heels, suspicion forming cold and hard in the pit of his stomach.

Slowly, Sharpe traced the rope's path across the floor. For some reason it seemed important that it remain undisturbed, forming as it did, a compass point for Hewlin's last known position.

The end of the rope lay coiled at the base of the rock wall that contained the ice water of the black pool. The frayed strands were damp beneath his hand. Until this moment, a small part of him had clung to the hope that Hewlin was still here, somewhere in the darkness, but he knew now that he was alone.

He took a deep breath and blindly explored the stone ledge. Only a fanciful man, which Sharpe told himself he was not, would conjure an ice-cold hand, emerging from the depths to pull him into the pool's lethal embrace. But despite this, the discovery of some unidentifiable object made him snatch his hand back in alarm.

Sharpe cursed himself for his nervousness, his voice sounding loud in the enveloping silence. He reached out again, his hand eventually closing over the sharp angles of something small, cold and metallic.

Hewlin's snuffbox.

Sharpe turned the box over in his hand, feeling the smooth surface of its enamelled lid under his fingers. Had it been left behind for him to find? A contemptuous farewell gift, or just an oversight on Hewlin's part? He shrugged and slipped the box inside his jacket.

He turned to sit with his back to the rock ledge, trying to recall the precise geography of the cavern, glimpsed during those precious moments while the candle still burned. The pedestal, which he thought of as the birdbath, must now be to his right, a matter of yards away, and beyond that, the three tunnels that Hewlin had studied so intently.

Sharpe listened for the sound of dripping water, intent on making his way toward its source. Finally, after what seemed like hours of crawling on all fours, he arrived at the base of the pedestal. He reached up, feeling for the lip of the birdbath, and then hauled himself painfully to his feet.

He frowned. Something had changed. The maddeningly rhythmic dripping had ceased, to be replaced by the hiss of a constant stream of water. He held out his cupped hand and gasped as a surge of ice water drilled into his palm. The skin on the back of his neck prickled. Though the significance of the increased flow of water escaped him, he had the feeling that it was a bad omen. He had to get out of this place.

Sharpe sank to his knees again and continued his crawling progress, sweating and shivering by turns. A wall rose suddenly in front of him. He got to his feet again slowly, reaching out on either side to touch the rock face. He could feel cold air on his face, some degrees lower than that in the chamber itself. He might be poised at the beginning of an escape route, or on the edge of a gaping abyss.

In a flash, Sharpe recalled Hewlin standing, as he was now, framed in the blackness of a tunnel entrance earlier in their journey, his shadow looming grotesquely on the wall. He'd thought at the time that Hewlin was merely pausing for effect, to seem as if actively recalling the route, preserving the mystery of his navigation, but perhaps there had been a reason.

Sharpe slid his hand slowly across the rock, stopping as the fingers of his right hand sank into a shallow depression at roughly shoulder height. The groove was regular, vertical, and man-made. He explored the furrow carefully, discovering two further channels on either side that sloped downward at an angle. If he could have seen the symbol, Sharpe would have described it as an arrowhead – pointing toward a way out.

After a time-consuming and laborious examination of the remaining tunnel entrances, Sharpe was certain. He felt for the arrowhead again to reassure himself that it existed, and then reluctantly, dropped to his knees. There really was no other option. He would have to leave behind the familiarity of the chamber and venture into the unknown.

At his back, had he been able to see it, water was now pouring continuously from the point of the massive stalactite. It spattered into the overflowing birdbath, and spilt over the rim, coursing down the sides of the pedestal and soaking the floor around its base.

Sharpe took a deep breath. The rest of his journey would be much like the first part, he told himself. A winding passage, narrow in places, no doubt. All he need do was search for the arrowheads that marked the route.

Laughter bubbled in his throat with an edge of hysteria. His head throbbed and he felt dizzy and sick. What was he thinking? What possible chance did he have of escaping this place? Hard enough when he could see where he was going, but blind like this, when a wrong step could have him tumbling into a crevasse, or a dark pool like the one behind him. Hewlin was right. This would be his tomb.

The thought of Hewlin's mocking tone was enough to spur him into action. He stretched out both hands to find that the tunnel walls stood little more than shoulder width apart. The stone, clammy to the touch, sloped inward. He followed its contours until his hand discovered a jagged cleft in the rock, and his fingers closed around something that at first he struggled to identify.

Candles. Impossible, but it was so. Candles and what felt like a tinderbox tied together with string. Sharpe drew the bundle carefully from its hiding place, his amazement at finding such a thing almost immediately blotted out by impotent rage at Hewlin's deception. It made sense, of course. The Major would have made sure he had an adequate supply of candles. He'd already walked the route with Felipe and had every intention of bringing Sharpe in to face Ducos.  

His fingers stiff with cold, Sharpe opened the tinderbox, relieved to find both flint and steel inside. Sparks flew and he bent his head to blow on the scrap of charred linen, coaxing the tiny flame into life. He lit one of the candles and turned to take one last look at the chamber.

The floor around the birdbath glistened in the candlelight. Frowning, he held the candle aloft and leaned in. The walls of the cavern gleamed wetly. Large puddles had formed around the clusters of stalagmites, and beneath the overhang of rock, water from the dark pool glided across the ledge and slid to the ground.

Sharpe tore his gaze away and stumbled into the tunnel.

Where did they come from? Sergeant Harper had asked himself. He knew where the French had ended their journey, rising up as if by magic in the heart of the Castillo, but where had it begun? The villagers had known, obviously, but there remained not a one who could tell them.

Harper looked out at the darkened landscape; the lowering sky seeming almost to graze the Castillo's battlements. Raindrops drummed on the branches overhead and pitted the ground, turning the previously hard-packed earth into a slippery, sucking morass.

But wait. The boy was from the village.

And so Sergeant Harper had roused himself and gone in search of the child.

After much cajoling, no small amount of bribery, and Harper's swearing that he would not tell a living soul, in particular his mother about where he had spent the past few nights, the boy was finally persuaded that the big Irishman could be trusted. Harper winced at this last. This lad, Juan, knew nothing of his family's fate. He would have to be told, of course, later. But for now, they needed his help.

Sergeant Harper hunched his shoulders and peered into the gathering darkness, trusting to Juan's assurances that he could find his way through these hills blindfold. One rocky outcrop looked much like another to Harper, even in broad daylight. The mountain track was running with water. A shower of small stones, dislodged by the current, bounced and skipped across his path.

The storm had lasted for the better part of the day as sheet lightning shocked the mountains into sharp relief while thunder rolled across the leaden skies. Now, in late afternoon, as Harper and his men followed Juan along the dirt track which was fast becoming a river, the heavens continued to pour gallons of water over the already saturated land, and most particularly, down the back of the big Irishman's neck.

Harper turned his face to the wind that howled through the narrow pass and concentrated on keeping his footing. He skidded as the gravel shifted under his boot and he stumbled, cursing. As they rounded a bend in the track, Harris grabbed Harper's shoulder and leaned in close.

"The shrine." Harris pointed toward the niche that sheltered the statuette of the Virgin.

Harper nodded grimly and steered the boy to the opposite side of the track, even though whatever remained of the villagers' floral offerings had obviously been washed away down the hillside, leaving the niche bare. The boy's gaze strayed toward the shrine. The Sergeant lengthened his stride to block his view. Water was gushing from the cleft in the rock and cascading into the trough beneath, where the statuette lay broken in two.

"So you've been coming up here since you were a wee lad, then," Harper said, his tone overly cheerful. The boy eyed him, puzzling. He had already explained as much as he thought necessary to this giant of a man with the strange accent. Juan understood the Sergeant's need to find this Major Sharpe, but he also knew that his mother would be very angry if she discovered where he had spent the past few days. Scarcely taller than a child herself, she could nevertheless quell any argument from the men of the family with one look.

Juan had wanted to accompany Felipe when he led the Englishmen, the 'exploring officers' into the mountains, but Felipe had refused, smiling and ruffling the younger boy's hair in imitation of his father. Juan had sulked and wheedled by turns, but Felipe was adamant. It was far too dangerous for children, he'd said and in this he had been correct, because now Felipe was dead. Juan had eavesdropped the search parties' conversation as they returned, grim-faced and guessed his cousin's fate.

He turned to the smaller man, Harris and told him that the entrance to the cave lay around the next bend and some fifty yards from the track, and then waited while the information was translated for the benefit of the burly Sergeant.

Harper nodded at the news and clapped Juan heartily on the back, almost knocking him off his feet. "Good lad."

Sergeant Harper was determined do whatever was needed to find Major Sharpe, but nevertheless, the thought of crawling into a dank, dark cave, with all those tons of rock pressing down on him was enough to bring him out in a cold sweat. "I'm more your outdoor sort," he said with a sideways glance at Harris. "Holes in the ground are for rabbits."

Harris saw the apprehension in Harper's eyes. The same thought had crossed his mind. He squared his shoulders and offered the Irishman a cheery grin. "Look on the bright side, sir. At least we'll be out of the rain."

Harper shot him a look. They trudged on in silence.  


	11. Chapter Eleven

Chapter 11

Sharpe collapsed onto a slab of rock. He knew he should stay on his feet, but every bone in his body ached, and the stone seat beckoned. He would rest for just a moment.

He had forced himself onward, approaching each division of the cave system, heart in mouth, in case his belief that the way was signposted proved to be no more than wishful thinking. But though he feared the worst, the candle flame revealed an arrowhead, and he moved on.

The sound of running water was constant now, the rough walls seeming almost to weep as moisture welled up and trickled down to puddle at his feet. A gust of cold air blew through the tunnel as if the ancient rocks were exhaling a last icy breath. Sharpe shivered.

He felt the snuffbox shift inside his jacket and drew it out. Tilting the candle, he studied the enamelled lid. Voltaire, rheumy-eyed, regarded him from the miniature frame with an expression of acute distaste. "Dobbs was right," Sharpe murmured. "You are a miserable looking bugger." The candle flame guttered. Voltaire's scowl deepened.

Sharpe turned the box over in his hand. There was an inscription in French on its plain silver back, a poem perhaps, now worn smooth by its years in a waistcoat pocket. He peered at the arcane scratches, angling the box toward the light. A monogram had been inscribed beneath the verse; the third letter, an '_H_' needed no explanation, but what of the other two?

Sharpe guessed at several possibilities, leaning back on his stone perch to gaze at the low ceiling. Water dribbled down the back of his neck. He shook himself out of his reverie and staggered to his feet.

The candle had almost burned down. He lit another from his dwindling supply and tossed aside the stub. Dear God, how much longer would it be before he reached the surface and saw daylight again? He stumbled on some loose stones and grabbed at the wall for support. Ice water trickled over his hand, numbing it instantly.

The caves threw up a new challenge around the next bend. Sharpe found himself faced by twin pools; a narrow causeway separating their ink-dark waters. This chamber was high ceilinged and the pools much larger than the one in which Hewlin had drowned.

Sharpe placed one foot gingerly on the ridge of rock, but his boot skidded on the slick surface. He withdrew hastily, buttoning his jacket to the neck. With the candles and snuffbox thus secured, he dropped to his knees and began a slow crawl along the causeway.

The water on either side lay eerily silent and still. Sharpe edged forward carefully, desperately fighting the urge to scramble to safety. If he should slip, he would be lost forever in fathomless black. 

At long last, he was able to stretch up and claw at an overhanging rock. Hauling himself onto safe ground, Sharpe glanced over his shoulder to find that in the short time it had taken to cross it, the causeway was already submerged by the black tide's stealthy advance. He stared, a cold sweat beading his forehead. A few more minutes spent looking at that damned snuffbox and he'd have been stranded.

Sharpe drew out the snuffbox and weighed it in his hand for a moment; Hewlin's taunts echoing in his head. He was sorely tempted to send it after its owner, but perhaps it would be better kept as a reminder never to undertake a fool mission such as this ever again. He settled for directing some pithy comment toward Voltaire and returned the box to his jacket.

Sharpe turned to step into a new tunnel and felt a cool breeze on his face. He frowned. This was not the stale underground atmosphere of the caves, but fresh air. The thought of being close to freedom spurred him on. Recklessly, he plunged into the darkness and ran straight into solid rock. The tunnel was a dead end. His luck had finally run out.

Sharpe staggered backward. It couldn't be; to have come so far, only to be trapped by a rock fall. And yet he could still feel the breeze. He lifted the candle higher and began to climb the pile of boulders. If the breeze could find its way in, then he would find a way out.

Gasping for breath, Sharpe reached up into the darkness, and then yelped as his hand was enclosed in a firm grasp. He tried to pull free, but found himself gripped even more tightly.

"Easy now, sir, or you'll have me down there with you."

"Harper?"

 "The very same," the Irishman replied, his cheery grin lit by the flickering candle. He leaned in to haul Sharpe over the jagged rock that reached almost to the roof of the tunnel. "The trouble we've had tracking you down, sir. 'Merry dance' doesn't even begin to describe it." 

Sharpe shivered inside the borrowed greatcoat and stared into the flames of a small campfire. Sergeant Harper handed him a mug of tea, which he accepted gratefully. Even after the long march back to camp, he was still chilled to the bone and shaking so hard that the rim of the mug rattled against his teeth when he lifted it to his lips. He gulped down the scalding tea and coughed.

"What's the butcher's bill, do we know?"

Harper shrugged. In the aftermath of their frantic evacuation of the Castillo it had been almost impossible to discover who had been killed, wounded or had escaped but run in the wrong direction and become lost in the surrounding forest. "Thought we'd mislaid Hagman for a time, but he's turned up at last with young Simpson. Dobbs is over there with Harris." He gestured toward a knot of men, sitting huddled around another small fire. Sharpe nodded, relieved, and began to gnaw on a chunk of some unidentifiable meat.

Harper poked at a stray piece of kindling with the toe of his boot and glanced at Sharpe with apprehension. "The Colonel's worried about the women."

"So he bloody well should be," Sharpe growled. "If he's got any sense he'll keep them well back behind the piquet lines. He was a fool to bring the pair of them along in the first place. "

The Sergeant noted that Sharpe seemed not to include the lady doctor in his criticism, and wondered at the omission. He risked a sideways glance at his commanding officer, but found him venting his spleen on the meat, tearing at it ferociously between mouthfuls of tea.

Harper sighed and wondered at his lot in life as the bringer of bad tidings. Noting the Irishman's hesitation, Sharpe turned his head, eyeing him with suspicion.

"They're not here," Harper said quietly. "We think they're still in the castle."

Sharpe flung the half-eaten food aside and leapt to his feet. "Bloody hell, Harper!" 

Sharpe paced back and forth, ranting. Why hadn't Harper tried to find her? Anything could have happened! The Castillo would be crawling with French by now. Had he thought what would happen when they found her?

Ah. 'Her,' Harper thought. So that was the way of it. "I'm sure they'll be fine, sir," he offered, but without conviction.

"The way things were 'fine' after Badajoz?"

"This is different."

Sharpe stopped pacing and swung round to face Harper. "Different! In what way is it different?"

Harper looked up and met Sharpe's murderous look evenly. For a moment it seemed that the Major might actually expect an answer. Sharpe sighed and sat down again. "I'm sorry, Pat." Harper accepted the apology equably.

"I didn't give it a thought either," Sharpe conceded, staring morosely at the ground.  "Just went straight after that bastard Hewlin."

"You were doing your job," Harper said. "You were ordered to catch a spy, so you did. Rescuing womenfolk isn't your job."

Sharpe raised his head to look across to where the Castillo loomed, its dark bulk blotting out the stars.  "Whose job is it then?"

Sharpe made his way through the trees some distance from the river. A thin drizzle had continued overnight but a rising wind just after dawn had blown it southward. Now everything wept rainwater; the ground a slippery mess, strewn with branches torn off by the previous day's gales. Sharpe skirted the blackened remains of an oak, the target of a lightning strike, and looked around.

To his left, he saw one of the drummer boys leading a pair of horses away from a tent that had been erected in haste a few hours earlier. Already Sharpe could see that the guy ropes had slackened as the pegs shifted in the soft earth, causing the tent to droop in the middle. The beasts walked with heads lowered, their breath wreathing like smoke in the damp air.

"They've been ridden hard," Sharpe said, as the boy drew nearer.

"Two days, without stopping," the boy replied. "So Mr O'Dwyer said."

Sharpe raised an eyebrow while mentally subtracting a day. The quartermaster was obviously continuing to embroider whatever rumours came his way.

"Anyone we know?" Sharpe asked lightly.

"You knew, didn't you?"

Major Hogan unbent from his inspection of a battered map as the tent flap was thrust roughly aside to admit a blast of cold air and a wild-eyed scarecrow of a Rifleman.

"On my life, Richard, I did not." Hogan said, unconsciously placing one hand over his heart as he spoke.

Sharpe's gaze followed the movement. Hogan read contempt in the other's eyes and dropped the hand to his side.

"_You_ knew, though." Sharpe had turned and was addressing the man who stood opposite Hogan and who seemed neither surprised by the Rifleman's abrupt entry, nor his accusation.

"Did you kill him, Sharpe?" Major Nairn asked, without looking up.

With difficulty, Sharpe controlled his temper.

"No, sir."

No, he hadn't. But by God, he'd wanted to.

"He is dead, though," Sharpe said. "Drowned. In the caves under the Castillo."

Nairn merely nodded, his attention still on the map.

Once more, Sharpe was reminded of the black pool of ice water, but this time, it was his own body that he imagined sinking slowly into its depths, eyes wide and unseeing, lungs filling with water. With effort, he dragged himself back to reality. Nairn was eyeing him quizzically.

Sharpe looked down to find that he was gripping the corner of the table, his knuckles white.

"Sorry, sir. What did you say?"

"I said I'm pleased to hear it."

Sharpe fixed his gaze on the tent wall behind Nairn's shoulder. "When do we attack, sir?"

Nairn and Hogan exchanged glances. Sharpe caught the look. "We are going to take it back, aren't we?"

He watched Nairn's index finger as it idly traced the path of the Esla, a thick line of ink that meandered across the crudely drawn map. 

"We haven't the men, Richard," Hogan said behind him.

"Lord Wellington has men," Sharpe countered.

"And he intends to keep them," Nairn said dryly. "That skirmish at the Esla was one thing, the losses in the village were… regrettable, but His Grace won't stand to be disadvantaged again."

Sharpe bit back a retort. Couldn't Nairn see that the men would willingly attack the Castillo for precisely this reason? It would be madness for them to slink away, tails between their legs while the French gloated from the battlements. Wellington would understand. 

"Perhaps if Lord Wellington were to be offered proof that the cause of our present trouble was no longer with us…" Hogan murmured, looking toward Sharpe.

Nairn regarded the hard-eyed Rifleman expectantly.

In response, Sharpe reached inside his jacket, retrieved the snuffbox and tossed it onto the table. The silver box tumbled across the map and came to rest between Nairn's hands.

"It was Hewlin's," Sharpe said. "The 'little thing' that gave him away. He told me he'd looted it from a Frenchman on some battlefield, but Jackson saw it…"

"And guessed the truth." Nairn finished. He took the box between thumb and forefinger and examined it closely, frowning at the initials engraved on the base. "J-P…H. Jean-Paul? Jean-Pierre?" He looked up. "What d'you think, Sharpe?"

Nairn smiled at Sharpe's stony expression as he opened the snuffbox and tilted it this way and that. "Hewlin's mother was English, father French. Divided loyalties. Who should he side with? Both?"

"Neither," Sharpe growled, recalling Hewlin's contempt for both Wellington and Bonaparte. Indeed, now that he thought about it, Hewlin had seemed amused by conflict of any kind, on any continent. He had craved intrigue, not material gain. 

Finding the snuffbox empty, Nairn laid it aside. Sharpe wondered what he had hoped to find, if anything.

"Will you take it to Lord Wellington, or should I give it to him myself?" Sharpe asked, nodding toward the tiny silver box.

Nairn smiled thinly. "Leave it with me, Sharpe."

"Difficult, certainly, but not impossible," Hogan said as he collapsed the telescope and returned it to Sharpe. "Not unlike your journey through the caves," he continued, casting a sly glance toward his dour companion. Sharpe ignored the look and turned up the collar of his greatcoat. The storm had brought summer to an abrupt end so that now, two hours after midnight, there was a distinct chill in the air.

The Major's 'wee adventure' as Sergeant Harper was pleased to call it, was a sore point with Sharpe, for while following Hewlin along the narrow tunnels a niggling doubt had lodged in the back of his mind. It had something to do with their way through the rock, he knew, but the need to press on and escape had banished the thought temporarily. It was not until he was leaning against a boulder, and drawing fresh mountain air into his lungs that he realised what had been gnawing at him.

The French had never been there, Sharpe had decided, and said as much to a puzzled Harper. He described the narrow passageways, the tunnel's frequent divisions, the rock falls and slime underfoot; the grotto with its domed ceiling clustered with stalactites. He told of the black pool's lethally hypnotic effect on Hewlin, which had eventually persuaded him to slip into its icy depths. No one, Sharpe said, not even a mad Frenchman, would have sent his men into those dank caves.

Alerted by the English major's exasperated tone, Juan had tugged at Harris's sleeve, requesting a translation. Harris obliged and the boy's eyes had widened in amazement as Sharpe's tortuous journey through the tunnels was relayed to him. Juan gaped in open admiration. The Major would surely have earned Felipe's grudging respect. But why, he wondered, hadn't the Senor taken the short cut?

Sharpe sank deeper into the greatcoat's folds, still smarting from the knowledge that Hewlin had duped him. But if the situation had been reversed, wouldn't he, Sharpe, have done the same, exaggerating their difficulty so as to maintain the upper hand? Sharpe permitted himself a grim smile.

He turned at a faint rustling off to his left. Sergeant Harper was returning from his reconnaissance of the Castillo's outer defences. The Irishman was able to move with a catlike grace that belied his height and bulk, an attribute that had been the saving of them both on several occasions.

"Well, Sergeant, what'll we need to get inside the place?" Hogan asked as Harper settled himself in the shallow depression where Sharpe and the Engineer had taken shelter.

"We'll need to be insane, sir," Harper replied, his expression bland.

"Oh, I think that goes without saying," Hogan remarked, digging into a pocket for his snuffbox. Sharpe eyed him dubiously. One thunderous sneeze from Hogan would surely attract the attention of the sentries posted on the battlements. They might just as well stand up and offer themselves for target practice. Hogan noted Sharpe's sidelong glance and abandoned the search. 

"It'll be a bugger, sir," Harper continued, jerking his head toward the Castillo's looming presence.

"'Difficult, but not impossible' Major Hogan said," Sharpe offered.

"And I'm sure you're right, sir," Harper said, smiling.

On this night, the three of them had been studying the Castillo closely, noting the glow of campfires along the ramparts. The French had dug themselves in with unexpected thoroughness, Sharpe thought. He had spent some considerable time working his way around the Castillo's perimeter, but against his will, found his gaze straying to the fortress's topmost reaches to find them black, impenetrable. He told himself he was a fool. Had he really expected to see some sign of life? The glow of a candle in one of the narrow embrasures? A cloaked figure silhouetted against the sky?

Hogan cast a glance over his shoulder. "This would have been an impregnable fortress until the fourteenth century."

Sharpe considered ignoring Hogan's schoolmaster's tone, but then decided to humour him. They had nothing else to do for the moment. He folded his arms and heaved a sigh. "Go on, then. What happened in the fourteenth century?"

"Cannon happened, Richard. Cannon and gunpowder." Hogan leant back to gaze into the starlit sky. "Before that it would have been catapults and battering rams."  He waved a hand toward the battlements at their back. "Those walls would have been surrounded by archers and knights in shining armour. There'd have been the thunder of hooves, trumpets blaring, banners flying. Truly a sight to behold.  Not that the likes of us would have been knights, of course. We'd have been your lowly vassals, run ragged with all the fetching and carrying."

Sharpe grunted. "Some of us still are."

"Good Lord, Richard! Don't tell me the army's finally cured you of that troublesome romantic streak?" Hogan enquired, innocently. Sharpe looked away. Though he might only admit it under torture, Major Sharpe's romantic streak was buried deep, and it would take more than the vicissitudes of a soldier's life and Sergeant Harper's sly digs to prise it from him. 

 "Sergeant Major Armstrong says it reminds him of some castle up North, so it does."

Sharpe turned at Harper's interruption. "Yes, and he also said Ciudad Rodrigo reminded him of Scarborough."

Harper grinned. The Sergeant Major had discovered unexpected and frequently incomprehensible similarities to his homeland throughout the Peninsular. "Seriously, sir, he says it's a big bastard of a castle by the sea, and that when you're stood down on the beach, all you can see are these bloody great walls rising up from the cliffs. There's nowhere to put up a ladder and nowhere to put your cannon," Harper added, with a mischievous glance at Hogan.  

"And if you did manage to get up close, the defenders would have been ready to pour boiling oil on you, or more likely scorching hot sand," Hogan said.

"Sand?" Harper asked, grimacing at the thought of bucketfuls of fiery grains trickling into every nook and cranny.

"Well, if you were on the coast, you'd use what was to hand." Hogan turned to Sharpe. "Well, you've examined their defences, lad. Did you find the weak spot?"

Sharpe frowned. The Castillo's location seemed ideal, perched on the rocky promontory it dominated the countryside for miles around. There was still the question of the encroaching forest, which obstructed the line of sight in places. Would he rather be defending the Castillo or attacking it? "There's a small hill, close to the South gate," he ventured.

"Yes, and that's where you'd place your cannon, my boy."

"If we had any," Sharpe replied tersely. It was three days since his bad-tempered interview with Nairn. Three days with no suggestion that Wellington had even been informed of Hewlin's death, let alone the arrival of reinforcements. Sharpe knew he was a fool to imagine that he wielded any influence at all. Who knew what the General had in mind?

"But you do have rifles, Richard." Hogan stretched and yawned. "Dawn will break soon enough. We ought to be on our way." Harper followed the Engineer as he moved off. Sharpe cast one last glance up at the Castillo before slipping away after them into the dense forest.

Major Nairn regarded Lord Wellington's hawk like nose, which was presented to him at this moment in profile. The General, standing in the tent's doorway, was surveying his troops' activities with eyes narrowed against the evening sun that slanted across the low hills to turn the sloping grassland a fiery gold.

Nairn knew well the General's habit of husbanding his forces when the gains might be small, only to throw everything within arm's reach at a besieged fortress or city. It would seem that Il Castillo de Benavento was to be afforded the latter option.

"You think this a wasteful endeavour," Wellington said suddenly.

Nairn flinched, and was about to respond when he realised that the General was looking past him toward Major Hogan. The Engineer, standing beside a trestle table, and about to pour a cup of coffee, returned Wellington's gaze equably. "Do I, sir?"

"The Castillo serves no useful purpose, and we should cut our losses and move on. That is your opinion, is it not?"

Hogan studied his reflection in the polished surface of the silver coffee pot. "We have here a somewhat delicate situation."

"Delicate!" Wellington snorted. "It's a confounded nuisance." He wheeled around to face Nairn. "If we do nothing, then the French will dine out on this incident for months, and in years to come old soldiers will tell tales around the fireside, of how they outwitted and then beat the English so badly that they abandoned the Castillo without a fight."

Hogan listened intently and wondered whom the General was trying to convince, since Nairn's resigned countenance suggested a familiarity with the argument now put forth.

"Napoleon thought to drive us out of Portugal, but he was sadly mistaken. And he stands to be mistaken once more." Wellington exhaled slowly and straightened his coat. "I gather Sharpe had an extremely narrow escape," he said in a lighter tone, turning to Hogan.

The Engineer shrugged. "It's the only kind he knows, sir."

"And the kind he prefers," Nairn remarked dryly.

Wellington permitted himself a faint smile and returned his attention to the preparations being made outside.


	12. Chapter Twelve

Chapter 12

Sharpe tugged at his earlobe, rubbing it between finger and thumb.

"You're being talked about, so you are," Harper remarked, glancing over his shoulder to where the Major sat, his back against a convenient boulder. "Left for your lover, right for your mother."

Sharpe grunted and let his hand drop. He watched as Harper's attention was suddenly drawn to a tiny finch that darted to and fro among the rocks a few feet away. "What sort's that one then?"

Harper leaned in closer. "Don't know, sir. I've never seen one like it before. Pretty little thing, isn't it?" The finch cocked its head and turned a beady eye on the Sergeant. "What do you suppose it's thinking?"

Sharpe eyed the bird dubiously. With a brain the size of a pea, he seriously doubted its capacity for profound deliberation. "Probably hoping we'll clear off its patch and leave it to look for worms in peace," he offered.

Harper accepted the suggestion with a grin, and then jerked his head toward the Castillo. "What did your man have to say?"

Sharpe shrugged. "What I'd expected him to say. They're staying put."

Earlier in the day, Sharpe had been selected to negotiate with a representative of the French occupying forces. He had stalked purposefully across the boggy ground with as much dignity as the glue like substance would allow, his gaze fixed on the iron-studded main gate. After some ten minutes during which time he could feel his boot heels sinking further into the mud, a similarly grim-faced emissary had emerged.

They had conducted their stilted dialogue in world-weary tones some six feet apart, watched, if not heard, by the French on the ramparts and the British on the surrounding hills. No, Bonaparte's men would not give up the Castillo. Then Wellington's men would be obliged to attack. So be it.    

"Use what's to hand, Richard." That had been Hogan's parting comment as they went their separate ways two nights ago, and so Sharpe now stood beneath the trees on the low hill that overlooked the Castillo's southern gatehouse, and wondered what precisely he might employ.

Off to his left, the siege guns, set up shortly before Wellington's arrival, boomed and spat flame at regular intervals until the surrounding area was wreathed in smoke; the gun crews, red-faced and sweating, labouring to find their cannons' range. He heard a dull thud, followed by a faint click, and knew without looking that the shot had fallen short, the ball bouncing the last few yards and rolling gently to a halt at the base of the castle wall.

On Major Hogan's recommendation, the cannon fire was being directed toward those sections of the wall deemed most likely to crumble under constant bombardment, although the Engineer remarked privately to Sharpe that the guns provided for the task were 'little better than peashooters.' A ragged cheer went up from the watching infantry as another handful of ancient mortar was eventually dislodged, at the cost of several pounds of gunpowder.  

To a rifleman, the gatehouse presented a reasonable target. The contours of the rocky outcrop had obviously dictated its location, in a slight depression, which would allow a sharpshooter, hidden up here among the trees, an unobstructed view of its defenders. Sergeant Harper maintained that Hagman, the crack shot of the Chosen Men, could shoot a pimple off a man's nose without breaking the skin, which was all well and good, but they could hardly expect to recapture the Castillo by picking off the defenders at a distance, one by one.

Frowning, Sharpe surveyed the unpromising landscape. The ridge was lined with trees that had dug themselves determinedly into the poor topsoil, but the scrubland that lay between the hill and the gatehouse supported only patches of yellowed grass and low bushes; nothing which might afford cover for advancing troops. Or at least, not in daylight.

"Suggestions?" Sharpe eyed the group of Riflemen who had settled themselves in the shade of the trees and the handful of Redcoats who hovered uncertainly on the fringes of the gathering.

"We could all cut down a branch and use it to disguise ourselves," Harris offered cheerfully. "Like Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane."

"It's sensible suggestions the Major wants," Harper put in mildly, seeing Sharpe's expression darken.

Harris shrugged. "Well, it worked for Malcolm. Frightened the living daylights out of…"

"We are not dressing up as bloody trees," Sharpe snapped. "What're you grinning at?" he barked, rounding on a young Redcoat.

Private Slade gulped as the grim-faced Rifleman advanced on him. Thus far, he had successfully avoided attracting the attention of the fearsome Rifleman, but an unguarded facial expression had now brought him within Sharpe's orbit.

"Name?"

"Slade, sir," the boy replied, shrinking under Sharpe's unwavering eye.

He stared fixedly past the Major's left shoulder and noticed the equally fearsome Irish sergeant ambling over to join them. He swallowed painfully.

"Private Poulter was a friend of yours, wasn't he?" Harper asked. "The lad who caught the first French bayonet back at the Castillo," he murmured, turning to Sharpe, who nodded, recalling the flash of red that had presaged the attack.

"So a recruiting officer persuaded you to sign up then. You came with the draft from Lisbon. I suppose you were told what exciting lives we lead out here, and you wanted to see for yourself," Sharpe said, returning his attention to the boy.  

"I read about your taking the eagle at Talavera, sir," Slade offered, encouraged by the Major's conversational tone. "And Simon… that is, Private Poulter was very keen to leave England behind. But he had good reason," he added, earnestly.

"Really?" Sharpe enquired dutifully. Over the years, he had encountered a multitude of reasons for enlisting, quite a few of which might be termed 'good'; theft and murder included.

Slade had accepted without question the melancholic Poulter's assertion that he had been rejected by the only woman he would ever love, and assured his new friend that it was her loss. Poulter had neglected to mention that the 'woman' in question was the village blacksmith's fifteen-year-old daughter, who, since they had never spoken, remained entirely ignorant of his adoration, and consequently, his recent demise.

"He was disappointed in love," Slade said, his expression sombre.

"Weren't we all," Harper intoned, gazing skyward.

Sharpe coughed to disguise a smile. "And was that your reason, too, Private Slade?"

"Good Lord, no, sir," Slade replied, flushing pink. "It would be foolish to risk death or injury for the sake of a woman, don't you think?"

"Undoubtedly," Sharpe replied, vaguely wondering if he were close enough to kick Harper on the shin, should the need arise, but his Sergeant, perhaps sensing impending death or injury to himself, wisely remained silent.

"I joined up because I wanted to see the world," Slade said earnestly.

"Did you now." Sharpe turned to survey the parched hillside and uncompromising cliff face that formed the outer defences of the Castillo. "Well you're seeing Spain. I suppose it's a start." He offered the briefest of smiles and walked away.

Private Slade regarded Sharpe's retreating back for a moment and then turned to the smiling Irishman. "Why did Major Sharpe join the army, Sergeant Harper?"

"Ah, well you see he killed a man back home," Harper began.

"And he signed up to escape gaol," Slade suggested knowingly. As the son of a magistrate he was familiar with the practice of commuting a convict's sentence to service in His Majesty's Army. One volunteer might be worth ten pressed men, but this voracious Spanish war would accept sustenance from any source.

"Not exactly," Harper replied, thinking of the cutthroats of St Giles' rookery who had been after Sharpe's blood for the murder of a master criminal, their self-proclaimed king.  He shrugged. "Anyway, the Major took the King's shilling, and kills men all the time, only now he's paid to do it." He grinned wolfishly. "It's a funny old world."

Slade watched as Harper sauntered off to rejoin Sharpe, still reeling from the bone-jarring thump between the shoulders that the Sergeant had administered by way of encouragement.

It was quiet and dark. The siege guns had ceased their bombardment some hours ago. Sharpe looked up. The stars were beginning to fade. It wouldn't be dark for much longer. Or quiet.

How many times had he crouched on a cold hillside in the small hours of the morning, waiting for the word to advance? Too many. Portugal, Spain, India. And Flanders, long years ago. One of the ensigns had asked him if it got any easier. He'd lied and said 'yes'.

He looked around at the two dozen riflemen who crouched in the shelter of the rocky outcrop and noticed Hagman drawing contentedly on his pipe and staring off into the distance. Sharpe smiled at the sight. He had yet to witness any sign of nerves from the old poacher. Hagman accepted whatever came to him, good or bad, with equanimity.

Sharpe never ceased to wonder at time's elasticity. These last hours before an attack seemed always to fly by. And yet, in the thick of battle, when he was hacking his way through a heaving mass of bodies, choked by gun smoke, and deafened by the constant barrage of musket fire that charred the very air around him, every sword stroke seemed to last forever, and he saw all with a hideous clarity.

On one occasion, he had found himself standing among the fallen, breathless, bruised and bloody, convinced that he had fought for centuries, and been amazed to hear an officer pronounce, on consulting his watch, that it still wanted a few minutes to ten. He had dragged enemy officers from their horses, dodged a score of sword cuts and bayonet thrusts and delivered a score of his own; all this before what his Colonel would term 'luncheon.'

Now Sharpe leaned across and touched Harper lightly on the shoulder. The Sergeant in his turn relayed the same signal to his neighbour and he to the next man until eventually the group dispersed; one half, including Hagman, scrambling upward to the stand of trees, and the other, led by Sharpe, toward the gatehouse on the Castillo's southern approach.

Success depended on Hagman's ability to hit a target set at the outer limits of the Baker rifle's range and in poor light. In his mind's eye, Sharpe could see the action unfolding; knew what was supposed to happen, had rehearsed his part endlessly in his head. All he had to do was carry it out. Harper had declared the plan to be 'a parcel of ifs, buts and maybes,' which was perfectly true. Harris thought it 'classical in its simplicity'. Sharpe had forborne to request an explanation.

The gatehouse loomed before them. He could see a detachment of Redcoats, some carrying ladders, off to his left.

"Don't look down here," Harper muttered. "Nothing to see. Just keep walking, there's good lads."

Sharpe followed the Sergeant's gaze and saw two sentries patrolling the ramparts. He feared that some sixth sense would alert the men to their presence, barely twenty feet below, but the pair sauntered past, deep in conversation. Pale strands of tobacco smoke curled lazily on the slight breeze.

"This way, Pat," Sharpe whispered, pointing to where the ground rose steadily beneath the curving wall, before disappearing into darkness. He signalled to the men to flatten themselves against the stonework. They must wait. And listen.

The eastern sky was beginning to lighten, a ribbon of dull mauve outlining the far off hills. A rifle cracked high up on the ridge. Sharpe heard a shout from the gatehouse and the clatter of muskets as a second bullet hit home. The sentries raced past overhead, boots thudding on stone.

Sharpe looked up. This was the Castillo's weak point; a disobliging lump of rock that, had the castle's original architects possessed explosives, would have been blasted to kingdom come, but instead was providing a determined Rifleman with a way in.

"Harper," Sharpe hissed. "Give me a leg up."  Harper bent and made a stirrup for Sharpe's boot, and boosted him upward. Sharpe scrabbled for a handhold, cursing as the jagged rock tore at his palm.

The thought that flitted across his mind as he finally rolled over the parapet and thumped onto the fire step was that some laggard of a sentry would trip over him and then kill him. But there was no one. The French, observing the relentless shelling of the Castillo's northern face, and fully expecting an assault from that direction, had left the southern side undermanned.

Winded, Sharpe leant against the wall. "Christ! I'm getting too old for this."

Harper appeared beside him. "Thought you enjoyed this sort of thing, sir."

"Doesn't mean I want to do it forever."

The Irishman grinned and hefted his volley gun. "No, sir. 'Course not."

Sharpe could see the faces of his riflemen emerging from the gloom as they waited in the shadows beneath the ramparts. What he could not see was the assault he dearly hoped was taking place on the far side of the Castillo. He didn't envy those who would be first into the breach, though he had done it himself. Insisted upon it, in fact, as far as a lowly quartermaster could insist upon anything. Leading a Forlorn Hope into a breach was to tempt fate, but surviving it guaranteed promotion.  

Sharpe could see again the rubble, slick with blood, tumbling from the gaping hole in the wall that was meant to protect Badajoz from attack. He had trampled the dead underfoot, clawing at shredded uniforms and gaping wounds, oblivious to the screams of the dying as they fell away on either side. His only thought had been to reach the top of the wall, beat off his attackers and go in search of Teresa.

He shook himself, dispelling the image and found Harper eyeing him quizzically.

"Which way now, sir?"

Squaring his shoulders, Sharpe grinned. "The quickest way, Sergeant Harper. Through the middle."

The narrow passageway lay deep in shadow, the grey light of dawn having yet to reach these dark recesses. A shaft of yellow lamplight from a half open door slanted across the flagstones. Sharpe, watching and waiting in an alcove, drew back as the door was suddenly wrenched wide. A French officer staggered out, groping for the doorframe as if steadying himself on the rolling deck of a ship, then leant forward, gulping down fresh air and retching by turns.

Sharpe could hear the baying of the man's fellow officers as they roared encouragement and hammered their fists on the tabletops. No doubt one of their number was engaging in the French equivalent of drinking a yard of ale.

"Dear me," Harper murmured. "The hours these boys keep."

"Can't hold their drink, either," Sharpe whispered back.

The inebriated officer coughed and drew a hand across his lacquered jet mustachios. Sharpe scowled. The Frogs were obsessed with their precious whiskers.

At the sound of hurrying footsteps, the Frenchman straightened hastily. A younger man, a new recruit, Sharpe guessed, came racing around the corner and skidded to a halt in front of the senior officer. Gasping for breath, he blurted out a garbled message, which the older man, fuddled with alcohol, struggled to comprehend. To Sharpe and his men, stone cold sober, it was obvious that the boy was reporting the British attack.

Sharpe glanced at Harper. The space was too narrow to risk bayonets. The Sergeant drew a knife from his belt, and, still in shadow, edged closer to the men. Sharpe jerked his head toward the officer and then tapped his chest with the point of his own knife. Harper nodded. 

The first that the French officer knew of Sharpe's presence was when a ton weight landed on his back. He crumpled immediately, knees cracking on the stone flags, the sound like a gunshot. In one swift movement, Sharpe hooked his left arm under the man's chin forcing his head back and slashed his throat. In the room behind, the shouting and thudding of fists was reaching a crescendo.  He stood, letting the body drop, and looked over to see Harper already dragging his victim out of sight.

He followed the Sergeant's example and bent to grasp the Frenchman's expertly fashioned top boots, subconsciously measuring them against his own. Maybe afterward, he thought, when it was all over.

A burst of cheering and applause from the officers' mess suggested that the unseen drinker had achieved his aim. Bundling the bodies into a dank corner, Sharpe beckoned to the rest of the men to follow him. They had only minutes to reach the gate.

Sharpe's gaze raked the long wall. Gun smoke hung so thickly upon the air that for a moment, he could discern only a confusion of uniform breeches, smeared with dirt and blood as French and English soldiers fought for possession of the battlements. He saw a Redcoat clawing his way determinedly over the parapet only to be thrown back by a musket fired directly into his face. Further along, a handful of Redcoats had managed to get inside the Castillo and were lunging at the French defenders with their bayonets, but they were still desperately outnumbered.

Sharpe narrowed his eyes, measuring the distance between himself and the Castillo's massive main gate. He glanced behind him to where the rest of the Rifles waited, hidden from view.

"No point in sneaking up on them, eh lads?" he said with a grin. He drew the heavy cavalry sword from its scabbard. "Better let them know we're here."

"Aye, give 'em a sporting chance," Harper said.

The Irishman's Gaelic battle cry was known to put the fear of God into the enemy, and when Harper laid about him with bayonet and rifle butt, Sharpe thought, it would sound as though the hounds of hell were loose among them.  

Sharpe and his men erupted from a behind a pile of crumbling masonry and went hurtling toward the soldiers who crowded around the main gate. At first, their presence went unnoticed, their maniacal yelling indistinguishable amid the musket fire and frantic commands, but as they drew nearer, a French sergeant caught sight of them and bawled the alarm.

Harper levelled the volley gun, a seven barrelled monster of a weapon, designed for use by sailors, and managed only by the strongest of men. A tongue of flame leapt from the clustered muzzle. Illuminated for an instant, the knot of men at the gate were thrown backward by the blast and then obscured by a thick pall of smoke.

Sharpe was moving forward even before the air cleared, Sergeant Harper half a step behind him. The cavalry sword swung in a murderous arc, felling the only Frenchman left standing after the carnage wrought by the volley gun. Sharpe twisted the blade free and looked around for his sergeant.

Harper had reached the gateway and with the help of Dobbs and Harris, was struggling to lift the thick iron bar that secured the heavy doors. Sharpe slashed at a French captain who had thought to corner him by the wall, and risked a backward glance. "Quickly, man, quickly." The Irishman grimaced in response and proceeded to wedge his shoulder underneath the massive bar.

Sharpe joined his men in beating back those Frenchmen who had come pounding down the stone steps from the ramparts in response to the minor explosion beneath their feet. Sharpe swore. This deep embrasure was the worst of all possible places to defend. They were caught like rats in a trap where they could be skewered to these smoke-blackened gates by a well-aimed bayonet.

A heavyset French sergeant rushed at him screaming and brandishing just such a weapon, but Sharpe's solid cavalry sword sliced the air and the man fell sideways, still screaming but now in agony from a shattered forearm. Sharpe cuffed sweat from his forehead. The handle of his sword was slick with blood. He swore again and tightened his grip.

Behind him, Harper yelled and with one final heave the iron bar was dislodged. "Got the bastard!" he gasped, staggering clear as it crashed to the ground. Sharpe looked over and grinned, but his elation was short-lived. The Castillo's enemy garrison had at last been roused. Sharpe heard the roar of approaching troops and watched as the familiar blue uniforms filled the courtyard.

"Get the bloody gates open!"

Harper and Dobbs rushed to haul on iron rings the size of dinner plates. Sharpe ran to help, but his hands were sticky with blood and he struggled to keep hold of the ring as they dug their heels in and began to pull.

With the British hammering on one side of the gate, and the advancing French on the other, there was a very real danger that when the way was finally clear, the riflemen would be caught in the middle. Ponderously, the gate swung wide, and for a second, Sharpe faced the prospect of being shot in the back by the enemy, trampled by his own side, or crushed against the wall by indifferent Spanish woodwork.

He threw himself clear as the ring was torn from his hand and the gate crashed back with a force fit to splinter rock. Harper bellowed in triumph and Sharpe, with new-found strength, hefted his sword and led the British charge into the heart of the enemy ranks.

Sharpe sheathed his sword and looked about him, dazed. He had found his way once more to the herb garden, though he had no memory of negotiating the labyrinth of passageways that led here. The tangled shrubbery had been trampled flat during the battle recently waged within its high walls, the pathways strewn with small branches, torn loose and shredded by musket fire. A dead Frenchman lay crumpled beneath a ruined gateway, his head in a pool of blood. The sight of the scarlet puddle reminded Sharpe that he must attend to his sword. The crusted blood would damage the blade if it were not wiped clean. 

He stared at the broken stems of a dense clump of fennel. Only now would he allow himself to consider what might have become of Helen. Where had she been when the French overran the Castillo, and where would she have gone once she realised that he and the rest of Wellington's troops had been driven out?

He could not imagine her shrieking in terror and running away. She would have faced the situation calmly. Better that she had been far away in the turret room, but while there were wounded in the infirmary, the Helen he knew would have been at their side.

Sharpe wrenched open the door of the infirmary and saw a dark-haired woman gathering up blood-soaked bandages. He ran over and grabbed the woman by the shoulder, pulling her around to face him. "Helen!"

The woman gaped at him in amazement and struggled to free herself from the wild-eyed English officer.

Sharpe gazed back stupefied. "Josefina?"

The last time he'd seen her, at the Colonel's dinner party, she'd been luminous, sparkling with jewels. But now, with her hair scraped back, fingernails ragged, she might have been a peasant girl from any one of the villages the army had passed through.

"Richard!"

Sharpe turned.

Helen abandoned the pile of blankets she had fetched from the storeroom and came racing across the room. She flung herself into Sharpe's arms, knocking the breath out of him.

He staggered back against the doorframe.  "Good thing I'm not mortally wounded."

Helen apologised and promptly released him. Frowning, she assessed the cuts and bruises to his face and hands. Dismissing them as being worse than they looked she began to unbutton Sharpe's jacket purposefully.

"Yours?" she asked, indicating a bloodstain on the sleeve.

Sharpe glanced at it and shook his head. "Someone else's," he said, though in truth he could not remember.

For the most part, sword cuts and bone jarring blows had seemed barely to register. He had carved his way through the battle, dealing with each threat as it presented itself, only dimly aware of his own injuries. It had always been that way for him; time enough afterward to consider the damage done. 

He sank gratefully onto a chair, suddenly overcome with fatigue. From the open window he could hear the scrape of boots on gravel. The clearing up operation would be underway. He could trust Sergeant Harper to see to things; a burial detail, a guard for the prisoners. He must go out to the men, tell them he was proud of them; that they had fought well. Not right now, though. Later. Perhaps when he had slept for a month.

Helen was tugging at his shirt. Sharpe pulled it off over his head, wincing, and then leant back in his seat, regarding her with half-closed eyes as she went in search of clean water and salves.  


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Sharpe emerged from the darkness of the Castillo's shadowed rooms into bright sunlight. He looked left and right. Helen was standing with her back to him at the far end of the narrow walkway, swathed in a dark grey travelling cloak.

"I shall always have fond memories of Il Castillo de Benavento," she said, without turning round.

Sharpe came to stand beside her. "You've a soft spot for old buildings, then?"

She smiled and swatted him with the glove she held. He caught her wrist and would have begun a playful tussle, but her drawn expression pulled him up, reminding him that she was in mourning.

George Baxter had been killed in the first few moments of the attack. He had confronted a group of soldiers when they thundered up the cellar steps and burst into the infirmary. At first they had laughed at his protests, but when he tried to bar the door to the courtyard, a French captain had drawn his sword and delivered a scything blow which all but decapitated the doctor.  

Though numb with shock, Helen had insisted upon meeting with the French commanding officer and offered her services as surgeon to his own wounded, on condition that she, and Colonel Blake's 'nieces' were left alone to do their work.

"They're good girls," she had told Sharpe. "Josefina and Estella were not born to a life of luxury, though they took to it well enough when the opportunity arose." The twins had done their share of cooking, cleaning and mending when they were growing up and under Helen's direction, had rediscovered their old skills. 

"You're not coming with us," Sharpe said quietly.

Helen shook her head. "Colonel Blake has arranged passage to England for me. I'll be travelling northward with the wounded. I'll do what I can to assist, if I'm allowed."

"Why not stay with me?" Sharpe knew her mind was made up, but asked the question anyway.

"Oh, Richard, you have a job to do. You're a soldier. I can't expect you to look out for us both."

"True," Sharpe said dejectedly. "After all, I can barely look out for myself." He glanced at Helen, a smile behind his eyes.

"I didn't say that."

Sharpe looked off.  "Where will you go?"

Helen shrugged. "Back to my aunt's house."

Sharpe eyed her doubtfully. "I thought you didn't get along."

"Perhaps she is changed. I know I am."

Sharpe drew her closer. She leaned against him, curling her gloved hand around his shoulder.

"You'll visit me in years to come," Helen murmured, "and bring your family, and we shall sit in my herb garden and talk about the old days." She had rested her chin on her hand and was looking out toward the hills.

"I'll have children?" Sharpe asked, indulging her fiction.

"Two," she said firmly. "A boy and a girl."

"Oh. And will I have a wife?"

"But of course. You must have a wife."

"You think I'll make old bones then?"

Helen stood back, her hands on his shoulders, regarding him gravely.

"I'm sure of it."

There was a shout from below. Sharpe looked down to see Sergeant Harper marching purposefully between lines of men, bellowing orders. He should be down there with them.

Helen seemed to catch his thought. "Duty calls, I think." He nodded and, suddenly formal, bent to kiss her ungloved hand.

Helen touched a finger to his scarred cheek. "Goodbye, Richard."

Sharpe bowed and turned away. Helen watched until he ducked beneath the low doorway that led to the turret room, but he didn't look back. 

"Now I know how fond you were of her, my boy, even if she was a bit of a handful, but I'm afraid you'll just have to make do with this old girl."

At the sound of Major Hogan's voice, Sharpe turned to find the Engineer approaching on horseback and leading a chestnut mare on a long rein.

"The horse," Hogan said, seeing Sharpe's blank expression. He tossed the reins to him. "I told the owner that you and Esperanca got on like a house on fire, but he said he couldn't bear to part with her," he continued, eyes twinkling.

Sharpe grinned. "I'm heartbroken."

He well remembered Esperanca's recalcitrance during their journey to Saldana. She'd excelled herself on the return leg; shying at a butterfly, ignoring his commands and heading determinedly for every low hanging branch in an effort to unseat him. Privately, he felt that she would be better used as the filling for a pie.

He eyed his new mount dubiously. "I hope this one understands English."

"Certainly she does, and she's very well-behaved. You must take good care of her, Richard," Hogan said, spurring his own horse.

Sharpe hoisted himself into the saddle. "What's her name?"

"Ariadne," the Engineer said over his shoulder. "After a Greek princess, I believe." 

Sharpe muttered the unfamiliar name under his breath and the horse tossed her head in recognition. "Right then, Ariadne," he said more loudly, "let's get a move on." 

Voices echoed around the courtyard as officers gave orders for the men to form up and get ready to march. Sharpe urged his horse forward, pleased to discover that Hogan had been right about Ariadne's temperament. She obviously knew the drill, responding instantly to the lightest touch.

He rode toward the main gates, which stood wide. Ahead of him, a line of Redcoats snaked away along the narrow track down into the valley. Now he reined in, and looked back over his shoulder. Helen was standing as he had left her, looking down into the courtyard from the highest reaches of the Castillo.

He lifted his hand in salute, momentarily blinded by a shaft of sunlight that struck between the Castillo's turreted keep. Ariadne moved forward a few paces. Sharpe steadied her and glanced up at the Castillo once more, but Helen was gone.

"Ah, you've found yourself a decent piece of horseflesh at last, sir."

Sharpe looked around to see Harper hurrying to catch up to him. "Fine Irish stock, I'll be bound," the Sergeant said, slapping Ariadne's neck appreciatively. "Where are we off to, then, sir?"

Sharpe shrugged as they passed beneath the Castillo's massive walls.    "Wellington says he's driven Napoleon out of Portugal and Spain, and now he means to beat the Frogs on their home ground."

The Sergeant grinned, well pleased.

Sharpe and Harper were on their way to France.


End file.
